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What Dave said

The early news on Philly's 2015 mayor's race is not good.

Part of me wanted to weigh in on yesterday's dueling announcements by Lynne Abraham and Anthony Williams that each is entering the 2015 Philadelphia mayor's race; after all, I've been pretty clear in the recent past what I think, politically speaking, of both Abraham and Williams (Spoiler alert: Not very much). On the other hand, I wasn't at either announcement, so in a rare burst of fairness I decided to hold back. But Dave Davies, a former Daily News colleague, now at WHYY, did go.

His report was not encouraging:

When state Sen. Anthony Williams kicked off of his mayoral campaign yesterday, the event was richly stocked with those in the city's political class who want to be around a winner.

I'm talking about lawyers, fundraisers, communications people, political consultants, aspiring operatives and elected officials who smell money, contracts, jobs and influence in the cause.

Er, what'd he say?

Williams offered bromides about battling special interests, rejecting old ways of doing business, and overcoming differences of class, race and neighborhood.

The groundbreaking theme was "One Philadelphia," a message accompanied by a striking lack of specifics on anything.

"I don't want to be the mayor for just one part of town. I want to lift up every part of town," Williams declared, adding later on the subject of law enforcement, "let me be clear: one Philadelphia means a city that stops the practice of pitting cops against citizens and citizens against cops."

And who, exactly, is for that practice?

Or for that matter, what even is that practice? Reading this, I have no idea what the heck he was talking about, although this kind of thing hasn't been a deal-breaker to become Philadelphia mayor over the years. The thing is, I remember watching Williams in the 2010 gubernatorial campaign and being impressed by his sharpness -- especially when it came to how things get done (or don't get done) in Harrisburg. Trust me, he's not being vague because he doesn't know what he'd do as Philadelphia mayor. He's being vague because he knows EXACTLY what he wants to do.

As for Abraham, Brian Hickey (also with Newsworks) seems to have captured the zeitgeist, but the thing that jumped out at me was not a laugh line -- the idea that she wants developers to get 20-year tax abatements, double the current program. In a city where development is already strong and schools are starved for cash, that may be the dumbest idea of the 2015 campaign so far.

But it's still early...sigh.