Clout: Johnny Doc a real elect-ician

WE HOPE that former state Sen. Vince Fumo, back in Philly today for resentencing on his federal corruption conviction, isn't reading Clout.

Because John Dougherty, Fumo's longtime foe, had himself a very nice Election Day yesterday.

That might wound Fumo as badly as prosecutors seeking to add years to his prison sentence.

Dougherty wasn't on the ballot, running for any public office.

He gave up on that sort of thing after losing a 2008 bid for Fumo's newly vacant Senate seat.

Instead, Dougherty is refashioning himself as a guy who moves candidates around on City Hall's political chessboard.

His next gambit: The election of the new City Council president.

Dougherty is lining up votes for Councilman Darrell Clarke, although he has recently made peace with Councilman Jim Kenney, who could be a backup plan if Clarke or Councilwoman Marian Tasco can't land nine of the 17 Council votes needed to win.

Dougherty easily helped his union's political director, Bobby Henon, win the 6th District Council seat yesterday, and backed Mark Squilla, who won the 1st District Council seat. He already had close ties to Bill Green, an at-large Councilman.

Dougherty appeared to suffer one loss last night in his bid to influence the Republican Council at-large race.  

 With 96 percent of the vote tallied, David Oh led Al Taubenberger by 130 votes in the race for the second of two seats set aside by the city charter for the minority political party.

Dougherty used a Local 98-funded political-action committee, Philadelphia Phuture, in the last week to relentlessly slam Oh for misleading voters about his military record and for an arrest in the 1990s on gun charges that resulted in an acquittal.

Local 98, the electricians union, was backing Republican Joe McColgan in that race but he finished fourth out of five.

Local 98 also backed for City Commission Al Schmidt, a leader in an effort of local Republicans to overturn the old guard GOP leadership in the city. Schmidt defeated City Commissioner Joe Duda.

A sure sign of Dougherty's grip on local power: His union packed the Famous Fourth Street Deli yesterday for the traditional Election Day lunch where politicians swap polling-place gossip. The lunch was once a place where Fumo and his pals ruled.

It wouldn't be an election without one rumor that lives and dies before the polls close.

Word spread yesterday that a movement was afoot to draft Joe Vignola, former City Controller and current Sheriff Barbara Deeley's chief deputy in charge of finance and accountability, to run for mayor in 2015.

"Bad news travels fast," Vignola told us. "I heard the same rumor. I am not interested."

Vignola joked that he has been vaccinated against a political malady he calls "controller-itis," which fools city controllers into thinking that they can cakewalk to the Mayor's Office just because they are re-elected with ease.

"I don't know if I will need a booster shot," Vignola said. "But the vaccine is still working."

Councilman Jim Kenney was on the ballot yesterday - and was re-elected - despite what you may have briefly read on his Twitter account.

Kenney uses an outside contractor to maintain the account. His tweeters were pushing a ballot question he hopes will create a "rainy day" city budget fund. But they weren't sure if they should tout Kenney's re-election effort.

So this is how they responded when a local attorney tweeted his support: "I'm not on the ballot today, but thank you for the support and for supporting my friends."

That tweet turned some heads and was quickly deleted.

"They were trying to play it safe," Kenney explained later, saying the tweeters thought claiming he wasn't on the ballot would keep them from dipping a toe into the city's political waters.