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Democrat Oliver sees himself as a young(er) man for a young city

Running without endorsements or much money, former mayoral spokesman Doug Oliver hangs his hopes on the millennials. (Uh-oh)

Doug Oliver speaks during the mayoral forum at West Oak Lane Charter School on Saturday, February 28, 2015. ( STEPHANIE AARONSON / Staff Photographer )
Doug Oliver speaks during the mayoral forum at West Oak Lane Charter School on Saturday, February 28, 2015. ( STEPHANIE AARONSON / Staff Photographer )Read more

YOU MIGHT SAY the spark that ignited Doug Oliver's political ambition came when he was 8 years old, visiting the office of city Managing Director Wilson Goode.

Because Oliver's father bugged out before his birth, his mother Terri made it a point to expose him to male leaders.

Goode asked Oliver what he wanted to be when he grew up. Like most kids, he says, he wanted to be Superman or a cop. Maybe a fireman.

Goode picked up the phone and in walked a cop to talk to the dazzled Doug. Next, Goode got a firefighter on the phone.

"By the time I hung up the phone," says Oliver, now 40, "I didn't want to be a policeman or a firefighter. I wanted to be that guy who could pick up the phone."

Goode went on to be mayor, which is what Oliver is pursuing now, 32 years later. His life hasn't been smoothly paved, and a primary victory on May 19 is, let's say, less than certain.

Over breakfast at Center City's Le Pain Quotidien, as a long-absent sun painted the windows, a hunky Oliver tells me growing up fatherless was not as tragic as it sounds.

Where he played basketball, at Germantown's Happy Hollow rec center, "none of my friends had dads," he says. "I didn't know what I was missing." He does now and makes sure his own son misses nothing.

In addition to a determined mother, Oliver had a "village" of relatives, including Uncle Hal, who understood "I could grow up with discipline - or liking him." Uncle Hal, like Machiavelli's The Prince, chose discipline.

It wasn't enough.

Fearing what happens in most Philadelphia public schools, Oliver's mother enrolled him in Cedar Grove Christian Academy in the Northeast.

"My neighborhood was one way and my school was another," he says, contrasting bad and good. The bad-ass street influence prevailed.

He failed fifth grade and started to act up, probably "out of embarrassment." He became a bully and eventually was kicked out. The school was "trying to create a school culture and I was destroying it."

He wound up at Pickett Middle School where "the kids were a menace."

Less academically challenging than Cedar Grove, he soon was pulling A's and for that he was bullied. Call it karmic payback.

Long story short, his life was saved when he was accepted into the Milton Hershey private boarding school for disadvantaged kids. When he returned to Happy Hollow now and again, he found his former playmates were either in a jail or in a coffin.

"I am not from here anymore," he concludes.

On a Hershey high, he attended Lock Haven University, played small forward for the Bald Eagles alongside point guard Chris Franklin, a professional basketball player who is Oliver's closest friend.

Oliver's desire for public service doesn't surprise Franklin.

"Doug has always been an amazing, ambitious person who cares about others," Franklin says.

After Lock Haven, Oliver earned an MBA from St. Joe's and a master's in communication from La Salle, which might explain his well-written position papers and his devotion to education, his No. 1 issue.

I read his papers and without getting into the weeds I found one Big Idea I especially liked: Fair Play, meaning fairness must prevail, not special interests.

His 12-year-old son Ifanyi attends Glenside's Phil-Mont Christian Academy and splits his time between his divorced father and mother Natalie Martinez. The two parted amicably (she is circulating petitions for Oliver), and they decided to share custody in East Oak Lane without court intervention.

"I didn't want to be 'mandated' to be in my son's life," says Oliver, taking a stand more fathers should emulate.

Not having his own son in a Philly school won't play well politically.

How about endorsements?

"None," he says evenly, "short of frustrated Philadelphians who want something different."

He is different - not a lawyer or career politician like his opponents. After three years with PGW, he became Mayor Nutter's press secretary for two years, then returned to PGW as a senior vice president.

Without endorsements, without big money, without bodies, how can he expect to win?

Nutter started out in last place in 2007, he notes, and finished first, with 106,805 votes. But Nutter had endorsements, and turnout in that five-way slugfest was an anemic 35 percent.

Oliver says that out of some 800,000 registered voters, 411,000 are under the age of 45, and his opponents are all at or above 60.

"The city is getting younger," Oliver says accurately, and "if these young people come out and vote, who do they see in their best interest?"

A few seconds later he admits it is "proving difficult" to get millennials excited. Statistically, the youngest voters are the least likely to vote. They could turn out in record numbers for Oliver. I could also win the Broad Street Run.

I don't see either happening.

But Doug Oliver is a long way from done.

Phone: 215-854-5977

On Twitter: @StuBykofsky

Blog: ph.ly/Byko

Columns: ph.ly/StuBykofsky