Philly Clout: Jim Kenney's rebirth of cool?

For a mayor who, as Philly Mag alleged, is waging a "War on Cool," Jim Kenney is looking pretty cool this week.

And not just among yuppies in bike lines, either.

A new Pew Charitable Trusts poll found that 53 percent of Philadelphians approve of the job Kenney is doing, while only 23 percent disapprove.

But what Clout found interesting is that support for this South Philly-bred, Irish Catholic mayor holds steady among fellow whites (53 percent), blacks (54 percent) and Hispanics (58 percent).

We'd like to take this opportunity to apologize, Mr. Mayor, for calling you a "Pasty White Dude" in this space last year. You ain't Miles Davis cool, but apparently you have some real street cred in the neighborhoods.

The same couldn't always have been said for your predecessor, Michael Nutter, whose approval number among fellow black residents was typically 15 to 20 percentage points lower than among whites.

"To see someone who is sort of even across the board is different," said Larry Eichel, director of Pew's Philadelphia research initiatives and father of Molly Eichel, the famous editor.

(The lesson here, it probably goes without saying, is that whites really dig the Sugar Hill Gang, while blacks are meh. Don't get us wrong, though: Nutter was a solid mayor in a tough town, and his overall approval number was a well-earned 52 percent last year.)

"When I briefed some of the mayor's people on these numbers, they were not unhappy," Larry Eichel said of Team Kenney.

Clout threw a couple of softballs at Kenney spokeswoman Lauren Hitt, asking why, in her humble opinion, her boss is enjoying such broad support. She crushed one of those pitches in the direction of the American Beverage Association, which lost the Great Soda War of 2016 - along with $10.6 million in the process.

"He tried to put forward an agenda in his first budget that would serve everybody - except the soda lobby," Hitt emailed.

Asked how Kenney plans to spend his political capital, Hitt said he's focused on implementing pre-K and community schools and rebuilding parks, rec centers and libraries.

"If that implementation is successful, then we expect a myriad of benefits, from increased public safety to increased educational and job opportunities," Hitt said, "and, hopefully one day, making minorities and lower-income people as optimistic about the future of the city as white and wealthy folks are now."

A note of caution, though: While Kenney's 23 percent disapproval number is the lowest recorded in the seven-year history of the Pew poll, the 24 percent "undecided" number is the highest.

We started getting calls last week that someone named "Solange" was running for Pat Toomey's U.S. Senate seat. But, alas, it's not Solange Knowles, as some of our followers on social media were sad to learn Thursday. And, honestly, so were we.

The would-be candidate is Solange Chadda, the French-born West Philly resident who alleged in 2006 that members of U.S. Sen. Bob Casey's campaign had tried to bribe her to abandon her independent candidacy. The Daily Pennsylvanian wrote about it in a quadruple-byline story by Anne Dobson and three identically named reporters.

This year, Chadda is trying to get on the ballot again. But she told us Thursday that she recently received threats from government lawyers and was preparing to board a plane out of Philadelphia to cool her heels until this all blows over.

Her campaign website just calls her Solange, so we will, too.

"I must have done something good for them to be so worried for me to be on the ballot," Solange said.

Wanda Murren, spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of State, said in an email that Solange filed a court petition last week seeking ballot access "and alleging various wrongdoings by various parties."

Solange's petition was dismissed this week when she didn't show up for the hearing.

Still, we wanted to do our due diligence. Clout searched the docket and found that Solange has filed federal lawsuits in recent years alleging bribery, mortgage fraud, forgery, vandalism, intimidation, animal cruelty, extortion, kidnapping, identity theft, racketeering, framing and loan sharking. She also makes an ominous reference to crossing paths with "a lawyer who has no scruples" and "will kill in cold blood if he has to."

Who hasn't, though?

In 2010, former Bleacher Report senior analyst Burton De Witt published a zany tale about horse racing and wrote that "Chadda, in order to get the attention she craves, bought a horse, a beautiful living being, and used it to get her name in the news."

"What Chadda is doing needs to be stopped before someone gets hurt," DeWitt wrote.

Clout could say the same thing about any number of duly elected senators in Washington. But we admit that we have absolutely no idea what's going on and will quietly back away from this entire mess.

Murren said Solange still may file an appeal in an attempt to get on the ballot with Toomey, Democrat Katie McGinty and Libertarian Edward T. Clifford III.

If that happens, you can read about it . . . elsewhere.

District Attorney Seth Williams is carrying around so much political baggage this year that running for reelection probably would mean entering a world of pain.

But he's showing no signs of backing down. Williams is holding a fundraiser Oct. 20 at Ashton Cigar Bar on Walnut Street in Center City. The invitation features a photo of a lit cigar next to a snifter of brandy - classic Seth - with contribution levels of Romeo y Julieta ($75), Macanudo ($150) and Cohiba ($250).

Maybe indicted State Sen. Larry Farnese will show up, as he did when Seth held a fund-raiser in June at the Waterworks.

- Staff writer William Bender contributed to this column.

On Twitter: @wbender99 . Email: benderw@phillynews.com