Once a Nutter critic, now kinder words

One of Mayor Nutter's sharpest former critics on City Council met privately Thursday with the lame-duck mayor he'd once trashed and bashed, and both men came out smiling.

The erstwhile Nutter critic - who not so long ago was tweeting about "Mayor Nutty!" - was the man most likely to succeed him, James F. Kenney.

Fresh off his landslide victory in Tuesday's Democratic mayoral primary, Kenney stood with Nutter outside the mayor's second-floor City Hall office and praised his tenure.

"I thank the mayor for all the work he has done as mayor," Kenney said, listing some of Nutter's accomplishments, such as getting the city through the Great Recession and starting "a new era of ethics and transparency."

Nutter spoke well of Kenney, too. "I want to welcome my friend back," he said, "back to the mayor's office."

Little of grit or substance was shared with the waiting assemblage of journalists. But the tableau was momentous in its own right: A two-term mayor was putting aside any past points of contention and all but giving his political blessing to the man who, in a city where registered Democrats now outnumber Republicans by 7-1, stands an excellent chance of succeeding him in January.

Without offering details, Nutter said he and Kenney spoke about the eventual transition and about various initiatives the Nutter administration didn't get to finish.

As recent as January, Kenney was criticizing Nutter, blaming him for "the secrecy in which the administration conducted their deliberations" leading up to a deal to sell the Philadelphia Gas Works - a deal that Council, Kenney included, had spiked.

But as he stood next to Nutter on Thursday, Kenney had only words of praise.

When asked about his apparent change of tone about the administration, Kenney said: "I'm not in any mind right now to criticize the mayor who has just endorsed me."

He and Nutter agreed that in general, Council members and the mayor often clash and disagree on things. Kenney said, "It comes with the territory."

It especially came with the territory during the recent years of Nutter's tenure, when Council President Darrell L. Clarke sparred with the administration on any number of issues.

In the final weeks of his primary campaign, though, Kenney found an ally in Nutter. When State Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams, Kenney's top rival, said he would fire Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey, Nutter - who had endorsed none of the six candidates - said anyone who held that view was unqualified to be mayor.

Kenney spoke Thursday of his own transformation to being a more diplomatic politician.

"What I've learned through this campaign is that discipline prevails," he said. ". . . The more disciplined you are as a mayor, the more successful you are going to be."

Those words from a man who just six months ago, on Twitter, was calling Gov. Christie a "fat ass" - and barely nine months ago was tweeting his barbs at "Mayor Nutty."

On Thursday, Nutter recalled that the two men first met as boys, decades ago, at St. Joseph's Preparatory School: "The councilman and I have known each other since we were teenagers in high school, played football together. We were trained well by Jesuits. Public service is a part of what we do."

He skipped over the part of public service in which the Democratic nominee actually has to win in November in order to claim the mayor's office.

"Councilman Kenney will run this city well," Nutter said. "He'll make this city proud."