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Karen Heller: Street brothers starring in a Philadelphia soap opera

ABC announced the cancellation of two soap operas last week, All My Children and One Life to Live, set in the mythical Main Line suburbs of Pine Valley and Llanview.

T. Milton Street at his campaign office. He is Mayor Nutter's only challenger in the Democratic primary.
T. Milton Street at his campaign office. He is Mayor Nutter's only challenger in the Democratic primary.Read moreCHARLES FOX / Staff Photographer

ABC announced the cancellation of two soap operas last week, All My Children and One Life to Live, set in the mythical Main Line suburbs of Pine Valley and Llanview.

Weep not, fans of high theatrics and conniving characters: Philadelphia is home to its own soap, The Streets Where We Live.

The boisterous Street brothers, John F. and T. Milton, while not nearly as fetching as Erica Kane - though T-Milt can rock a jaunty tam - are providing much drama in our otherwise narcoleptic mayoral foofaraw. Calling it a "race" verges on the sort of hyperbole and disregard for facts that are the twin cornerstones of Milton's "campaign."

Milton is running in the May 17 Democratic primary against Mayor Nutter, while John switched his registration Monday from Democrat to independent - granting a second Street the opportunity to oppose the mayor, this time in the general election. The Streets are the Angry Birds of local politics.

Milton reminds me of Donald Trump - without the money or curious architecture that is his hair. But they do share a gift for bombastic logorrhea, if not logic, while starring in their own reality shows. Trump's airs Sunday on NBC, while T-Milt's plays on a perpetual loop in his mind.

I promised myself that with T-Milt, one column and I was done, just as I adjured that I wouldn't consider Trump a serious presidential candidate, only an ego monster suffering from a relentless need for attention.

Milton Street deserved ink because he addressed the problem of the city's many former inmates who have trouble finding work, an issue Nutter also took on, signing into law Monday a "ban the box" bill prohibiting employment applications that ask about prior convictions.

Ex-offenders need jobs. I just don't think we need to start with Milton.

But just when I thought I was out of the Street department, they pulled me back in.

John would like us to believe his new registration means little, though it was miraculously leaked to multiple media sources within hours. His reasoning: "My switch is simply a means of keeping a variety of options available as a master of good politics."

Run that through Google Translate for "hooey" and you get: There's nothing I wouldn't do to make Mike's life miserable, even running for mayor again.

There should be a healthy debate about the issues, holding Nutter accountable, asking what he intends to do during a second term. I'm just not sure the Streets offer the chance for intelligent dialogue.

For starters, there's nothing healthy about how Nutter and John Street feel about each other. They loathe each other. Street hates Nutter with an Iago-toward-Othello passion, the sort of thing that soap operas feast on but your parents or a mental-health professional might counsel you to get over so you can get on with your life.

Know what? Street didn't do that.

Even while the Philadelphia Housing Authority blew up, and the board - which Street chaired - looked less than authoritative (and was eventually asked to step down), Street was still foaming about Nutter and brandishing racial comments, the less repeated the better.

He even befriended former opponent Sam Katz in one of those the-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-BFF move. Does this make sense? Only if you understand Philly politics.

Nutter ran for office as the anti-Street, something that could not have endeared him to his predecessor, though it's not clear anything could. The dislike dates back years, to roughly the Mesozoic Era.

When Nutter was elected four years ago, he removed or undid basically everything Street had touched, as though City Hall suffered from an epidemic of cooties.

For the first year, this repudiation worked in Nutter's favor. Then people started asking what the mayor had accomplished. They wondered if he could be tough on entitled city employees who weren't being asked to make the same concessions as many private-sector workers.

Now T-Milt has won endorsements from the firefighters and AFSCME District Council 33. These blessings could endear Nutter to voters who may view him as more formidable than they had previously believed. John's registration of independence, and the possibility he may oppose Nutter, reminds us of how different these two adversaries are.  

The Streets Where You Live has just been renewed and already has the appearance of ratings gold. For whom remains to be seen.