>> the city of philadelphia will elect a new mayor in two days. "inside story" starts right now. ♪ good morning, everyone. i'm matt o'donnell. it is sunday, november 1, 2015. let's get our insiders in on "inside story." we have g. terry madonna from the f&m poll, which we will have this morning. >> thank you. >> good morning, terry. dom giordano, the radio-talk-show host. hey, dom. >> thank you. >> good morning to you. >> good morning. >> attorney george burrell. good morning, george. >> morning. >> and, finally, christine flowers, attorney and journalist. >> hello, matt. >> good morning, christine. all right. so, philadelphians are heading to the polls on tuesday to elect a new mayor of philadelphia. mayor nutter is term-limited. the final debate was held right here on 6abc, featuring melissa murray bailey and jim kenney. i've spoken to each of the main candidates about a number of issues in the campaign. you've seen them in my "gopro politics" series on facebook. and, in the end, i asked

jim kenney and melissa murray bailey this -- what the focus of their administration would be. and here is how they responded. >> known for creating an environment where people can meet their potential. everyone is put on this earth and has a certain potential or opportunity to be the best they can be, and i think that the government has a responsibility to assist that, get out of the way when necessary, but push and assist and encourage. >> i think taking back our schools and focusing on education. for far too long, we point to the state and we say, "if the state's not gonna do our part, what, really, can we do?" i don't accept that. i think it's our responsibility as a city and as mayor to make sure that we're giving kids every opportunity they deserve. so, to our insiders, we, at the very least, in this election have a contrast. we have one side saying government should reach out at times to help others, another side saying, "you know, sometimes we need to look more inward to solve our own problems." do you give them at least that?

>> uh, yeah. there's a contrast here. i just wish the republican in this had stepped up and made a real debate and a real contrast out of it. i find it to be lacking, and i think kenney would have responded to that. he's the type of guy that would like to joust and respond to it. >> i agree. i agree with dom. i think that the republican candidate, melissa, is strong. she's intelligent. she's obviously capable. but she didn't really present an opposition. she didn't present a different perspective that was so radically different from jim kenney, and you needed that in a city which is going to vote democrat. i mean, that's the default position, and i don't think that there was enough there. i do think that with kenney, he kind of had, like, an anthony kennedy -- justice anthony kennedy -- kind of response where "we need a city where everyone will reach their potential." eh. that's kind of squishy. >> one of the things that he has really set out as his signal issue is gonna be dealing with poverty, and i know my friend here is gonna talk about that. it remains an intractable problem that even with a plan,

it requires state and federal help which isn't forthcoming, and that may be the acid test for a kenney administration. >> yeah, i think that the contrast is, look, it doesn't make any difference what the republican candidate did here. jim kenney's gonna be the next mayor of the city of philadelphia, and i think he has laid out both poverty, re-entry. he's laid out a series of issues that focus on the african-american community in particular, which gave him 46% of his vote in the margin for victory. but i think jim kenney is a passionate guy. i think what the mayor said earlier this week, though, you know -- and terry's talked a little bit about when you get to the second floor of city hall, you're limited by the resources available. then the question is, "what are the choices he's gonna make? where is he gonna invest those resources?" >> murray bailey talked about schools, and we know that mayor nutter believes that the s.r.c. should be ended, not necessarily to allow electable school board but to change it into something more of a local control.

does either candidate have an opportunity over the next four years to seriously improve the schools, public schools, in philadelphia? >> well, i think they do have an opportunity, but i think jim kenney is going to retard the process, if anything. he's an enemy of charter schools. i mean, there's no doubt about it in my mind, and he's basically said that, matt. so, i don't see much of a change. i see kenney saying, "we need more money." it's always more money. >> at the end of the day, though, if you don't get some amalgamation between harrisburg and philadelphia, not just focused in philadelphia -- education across the commonwealth of pennsylvania is in distress. >> yeah. >> it's not just here. and so if you're not gonna get some amalgamation of resources -- i led the negotiations in the street administration that established the s.r.c. the s.r.c. was established because the state said they could run public education better than it could be run in the city of philadelphia, and just going back to a private board is not gonna change it, because with a private board, education's going downhill. it is a resource issue.

everybody knows it's a resource issue. you've got to get a better system. just having -- and i'm a charter-school operator, and i believe in charter schools, but that by itself is not the answer. >> yeah, but how 'bout this point? is the school district of philadelphia too big to govern? the bureaucracy and the operation itself -- i think the school district, in addition to what my colleague has said here, needs restructuring so that you have much more autonomy in regional areas of the city so that it can function without a top-down bureaucracy that doesn't seem to work very well, at best. >> plus, matt, you know, and attacking the s.r.c. is the fast, easy way to sort of go about the problem. the way that mayor nutter structured his comments at the forum -- it was backwards. instead of saying, you know, "we need to do this, we need more equality and funding, we need to improve the system and then look at getting rid of the s.r.c.," he flipped it, and he said, "we

need to get rid of the s.r.c. only if we can do this, this, this, this, and this" -- sort of making the s.r.c. as the whipping boy -- and i think that that was the easy way to go, 'cause a lot of people have criticized s.r.c. and, as dom said, to pivot back to kenney, he is not going to be a champion of school choice, of charters. he wants an entrenched public-school monopoly, and that's troublesome to me. >> murray bailey wants to have government more living within its means. she cites her experience as a businesswoman. when i asked kenney about how -- you know, he was in council when we've seen a lot of these tax increases here in philadelphia -- if this is something that might continue to happen, and he goes right back to, "well, we need harrisburg to fund the schools." it all comes down to that, which is great. do you think that he would be a mayor that would seek to raise taxes to get us out of some of these situations? >> absolutely. i think he's gonna be a de blasio that we see in new york, and i think everything that he was elected on,

progressive philadelphia, loves this guy, particularly younger people, until there's a bill to be paid, and then we'll see if they love what i think he'll propose. >> but when you get to the end of the day, even if you go to the republicans in harrisburg, for example, everybody understands that you need new resources to solve these problems. they won't raise taxes, but they want to find a way to get resources. you cannot solve the problems that confront cities, that confront states, without additional resources, and jim kenney's gonna have to figure that out, whether it's trying to get more gaming, whether it's trying to do something else, or whether it's raising taxes, but you have to get resources if you're gonna resolve these issues. >> you remember that whole season of forums, where there was multiple -- over and over again -- that melissa murray bailey actually took part in before the primaries took place? do you look back and say, "well, that's really the best we could have done to show the public who wants to be the next mayor and now we're here two days before tuesday, election day?" >> i think it's on the republican and it's on the republican party in philadelphia. if they don't do things that will get media attention and get more people talking about this,

i bet, in many neighborhoods, people don't even know who this woman is, in my view. i think vastly, if we went down the street, i don't know if we'd get 1 out of 20 that actually know or know that we have a race for mayor. that's why some other people are doing different things to get people to vote. >> you know, one of the challenges -- i'm not against campaign finance reform, but one of the challenges of campaign finance reform -- makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to raise the necessary resources, and the only way you can communicate to people is on television, on radio, and by direct mail. >> i differ with that, george. i think the candidate has to do some things that are dramatic, that show the contrast between what i believe republican limited government is versus jim kenney, not arguing over the port and who's gonna dredge and not dredge. there's got to be a contrast. otherwise, why vote for them? >> but if you can't communicate that contrast, it's like a bomb that goes off in the middle of the desert that nobody sees or hears. >> the media will cover it. we'll cover it. they'll cover it. >> most people don't get their -- >> people will cover it if they're a dramatic showcase. >> you're both right, but here's the problem -- we live in a hyperpartisan, ideologically

driven era when issues often don't matter. you can frame both sides of the question, and the voters and the hyperpartisanship that we live in are going to vote their party. we have seen a dramatic increase in straight-party voting. >> exactly. >> all the days of ticket splitting that we talked about -- guys like me and women analysts, as well -- we talk about the philly suburbs, big ticket splitting. that's not happening anymore... >> terry's right. >> ...which defeats the ar-- you're both right, but, in a sense... >> you're all three right. [ laughter ] >> no. it's like a rashomon. it's like you know in charlie brown, when you see the little kids and then you hear an adult speaking and the adult goes, "wah wah wah wah wah"? and you don't hear differentiated words? that's what the separate partisan voters hear. they hear what they want to hear from a particular candidate. you know, if you love jim kenney, you don't care about doughtery. you don't care about all of the other connections that he has.

if you love melissa murray bailey -- and there may be people out there who will vote for her -- you're voting against jim kenney. you're not voting for this particular individual because you're seeing what you want to see, and it's just -- i agree with george, though. a lot of it has to do with money. if you don't have access to the attention-grabbing -- you know, if you can't put yourself in front of people, they're not gonna listen. >> let's try and wrap this up by this question. now, the last two mayors of philadelphia were both on city council -- john street, who was president. i think everyone would agree had a better relationship with city council as mayor. are you encouraged with jim kenney having been on city council and having a good relationship with the existing members who probably will be there if he becomes the next mayor? >> i think jim kenney is committed to building a constructive relationship with city council. unlike mayor nutter, who got little support from council when he ran for mayor, jim kenney got a lot of support from council when he ran for mayor, so i think the environment exists, but once you get to the second

floor, you got to deal with facts. you can't deal with fiction, which sometimes is dealt with on the fourth floor. >> all right. let's move on to another race that's gotten very interesting over the last couple of weeks -- the montgomery county district attorney's race. county commissioner bruce castor is running to get his old job back that he held for two terms. the republican is facing democrat kevin steele, who you see right there. he is the first assistant d.a. right now under current d.a. risa vetri ferman. now, bill cosby's name has emerged in the campaign, with castor facing criticism for not charging the entertainer in 2005 over claims of sexual assault at his home in cheltenham township. could cosby be castor's undoing in this race, or will voters in montgomery county do what they've done so many times in the past -- send bruce castor to norristown? >> i think they'll send bruce. i'm a big bruce guy -- full disclosure. in fact, i remember when the cosby thing was going on, two fax machines -- he was faxing me that he wasn't gonna go after him 30 seconds after it, and you guys, channel 6. so, i think castor weathers this, and i think people out of

montgomery county will think that was not the bill cosby we know now, allegedly, back then. there was -- it was a more difficult decision. >> plus castor was never hesitant to go after cases if he thought that he had the goods and the evidence, and, yeah, you might want now -- it's sort of like, you know, monday morning quarterbacking and looking and seeing what the evidence has come out afterwards, but i think it's -- i mean, i think steele made a huge mistake in drawing that first blood. you don't do that against bruce castor. i'm a castor fan, as well, and he is tough, and he's gonna come like, is just like the ripples in the pond. it's getting wider and wider. >> i'm on the other side of the table with george. [ laughter ] let me make this argument. if my case is right that we're gonna see less ticket splitting and more partisanship, is anyone at this table gonna deny the

popularity of a guy named josh shapiro, who literally could lead the ticket, and that's the one concern that i would express -- that, for republicans, anyway, that a shapiro tidal wave takes over montgomery county. that's about five minutes before he announces to run for attorney general of the state, which everybody has talked about. so, that's the one element in it. and then you've got risa ferman, who worked for bruce castor, who has as her first deputy kevin steele, who's running against castor. >> yeah. she's between a rock and a hard place. >> and castor was a colleague and still is in the county commissioner's office with who? josh shapiro. on what planet can you possibly describe a more -- >> this is a large county in pennsylvania, but, boy, is it small when it comes to politics, right? >> and i think my colleagues -- i love that my colleague -- my colleague here is right. i think josh -- >> we're all colleagues. >> we're colleagues, too, here. >> josh is the 800-pound gorilla in the room, and i think steele

is also the new kid on the block, and i think people are looking for the next generation of leadership. >> okay. pa supreme court races. i want to get you to real quick before we get to the break. three of the seven seats are up for grabs, and that's really never happened recently. >> 1705. >> okay. that's not recent. >> we were a british colony the last time there were three -- >> give us a nugget here. what should we be looking for with these races? >> look, this is all about party turnout. the voters, despite $10 million, a record amount raised for the court elections, will not know these voters. i stopped polling in them a decade ago. i got too many folks who said, "who are these candidates?" they're not allowed to say very much under the judicial canon in this state. they don't say very much. they had a big debate at widener law school. they all sounded strikingly familiar. they particularly went after the supreme court on how it handled the business with the grand jury and... >> let me ask this -- does anyone think we should not elect judges, supreme court justices, in pennsylvania?

>> not elect? oh. >> not elect them. appoint them in or some other way. >> appointing. >> so, we got 50-50 split there. >> but, at any rate, turnout by party will matter the most, and is there anybody at this table who doesn't think a guy named doughtery will lead the democratic ticket down here? >> but think about that. he'll have a connection to the mayor's office, and he'll have a connection to the supreme court. >> is there anybody who doesn't think that who else is from pittsburgh who's got a famous name? his last name is wecht. his father was one of the most high-profile coroners in the history of our country. >> but he was voted "highly recommended" by the bar association. >> what about judge judy, though? are you thinking of voting for judge judy? >> we got to go to a break. we'll be right back. >> "inside story" is presented by temple university. temple fuels students with academics and opportunities to take charge. plugged in to the city, powered by the world. temple.edu/takecharge.

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>> back with "inside story." the franklin & marshall college poll hot off the presses right here, g. terry madonna. >> you got it. >> we're gonna throw up some full screens, and there's a lot of information here, but we're gonna do some bottom lines at the same time. a lot of people think that the state's on the wrong track. well, why not? because, well, the budget hasn't even been passed. >> you got it. you got it. >> now, you found that more voters are blaming the state

legislature than governor wolf with that. >> yeah, and that's starting to change. the longer it goes on, the more pain voters feel, the governor will eventually feel considerably more heat. >> 36% -- excellent job for tom wolf. >> that's dropping. >> okay. i thought this was interesting. voters support higher taxes on smokeless tobacco, natural gas tax, oh, but don't raise my income tax or make me pay for any of this stuff, too, right? >> no, general tax hikes -- voters don't favor them. if it's a niche tax they don't think they're going to pay, they love it. >> sure. yes. and, also, hillary clinton leads the democrats in the presidential race in pennsylvania. >> and nationally. >> and trump and carson are basically tied in pennsylvania, and that matches what we have nationally, right? >> what we've seen in the polls, pretty much, pennsylvania simulates what's going on nationally. clinton had a great debate performance. joe biden's not running. the benghazi hearing, which democrats, you know, were thrilled about. she's the likely nominee, providing something occurs we

don't know about, and you can't rule that out in politics. carson and trump, in our state, a point difference -- similar to national polls. >> so, it seems to me, from what you've found with your poll, people in the state of pennsylvania should be okay with this battle going on that just seemingly never will end over the budget and how to fill the holes and how to pay for it, because there really are no answers, and i'm sure you're not asking them for answers, but... >> well, the fact of the matter is that the voters think harrisburg's dysfunctional. similarly, they think washington's dysfunctional. government doesn't work. there's no compromise. the schools aren't being funded. county human services are being damaged. nonprofits are hurting. every day there's a news story about somebody that's feeling the pain, and the voters are rightfully blaming harrisburg. >> but the legislators are still getting paid because they're fundamental to -- they're fundamental workers, but the schools don't need to be funded. >> but they spend $27 billion during all this -- some number like that. somehow or another, they're spending money. >> well, a 2009 supreme court decision, as christine knows,

said what? you must pay the workers so there's no general shutdown like we've had in the past. >> we also -- there's no question that the legislators in harrisburg and washington are dysfunctional, but, also, private-sector leaders are dysfunctional. there's no bipartisan cooperation among the private sector going to these folks and saying, "this has got to stop." i mean, everybody's in their respective corners, supporting their caucuses. we need private-sector bipartisan leadership, 'cause that's the only way politicians are gonna respond. as long as they keep getting re-elected, they're not gonna respond on their own. >> vote on tuesday, and you could win $10,000. no joke. the philadelphia citizen, which was created by insiders here, larry platt and ajay raju, are seeking to increase voter turnout by promising to award that amount of money to a random voter, and the odds are better than winning the powerball -- seriously. not everyone thinks it's such a great idea, including dom giordano, who wrote a column in the inquirer about it. why don't you think it's a good

idea? >> well, it was a good idea to write the column because george and i agreed on every word. he told me that, so that was good. the list is very, very long. to me, this trivializes what is a problem, and i like these guys, of course, and i know they're trying to get a conversation started. i even think there's a legal issue, because they're going to award, at some point in the morning, by some random selection, somebody coming out, and there could be a lot of people coming out. i got to see -- is it gonna be a clearinghouse with the big check? are they gonna be out there -- ajay and the guys? and is 10 grand enough? what about the next time? what about trips, caribbean vacations, the whole thing? we could be creative. where does it end? >> yeah, i think that's the problem, and i think, at the end of the day, the people sponsoring this themselves are -- they say they're independent, but they're not. they're actively involved in politics. they support candidates. i suspect the citizen, at some point, writes about candidates and things that are going on. so, it's hard to draw the line between this well-intended idea and a political influence. >> i asked for -- i'll get your comment in a moment. i want to throw what ajay and larry platt said about it, 'cause i e-mailed them and told

them we were gonna talk about them, and they wanted to chime in. larry platt says, "you know what? you're right, dom. turnout means nothing if you're not turning out engaged, informed citizens. that's why the philadelphia citizen exists." >> [ laughs ] nicely played! >> christine? >> to quote dom -- and i love your column -- desperate times call for desperate measures. that's true. but this -- this -- this trivializes the thing that we -- that soldiers have given their lives for. i mean, paying someone to go -- that actually repulses me -- the idea of paying someone to go to the polls, and i have in my mind battlefields. we have two of the great battlefields in the nation in our history in pennsylvania -- gettysburg and valley forge. and we're gonna pay someone to get out of their house and to walk to a polling place? i'm sorry. that upsets me. >> real quick -- we got to go to the break so we can get your inside stories of the week. does anyone think this will actually increase turnout in philadelphia on tuesday? >> minimally. i'm sure a few more people.

>> not -- not -- not -- >> most people aren't gonna -- >> marginally, yes. >> be right back. >> exactly. ♪

newspapers back christine donohue for supreme court. saying this daughter of a coal miner gets the highest rating from the bar association. they call donohue uniquely qualified. and cite her commitment to restoring integrity. both business and labor endorse donohue because she's independent and fair. prosecutors. firefighters. people who keep us safe - all back donohue. on tuesday - christine donohue. let's restore integrity to pennsylvania's supreme court

>> "inside story" is presented by temple university. temple fuels students with academics and opportunities to take charge. plugged in to the city, powered by the world. temple.edu/takecharge. >> inside stories of the week -- we start with terry. >> what if we had an election on tuesday and no one showed up? no one is expecting a big turnout. two years ago, in a comparable election, about 18% of pennsylvania's voters turned out. we have a lack of competitive elections, maybe except with the montgomery county d.a.'s office. low turnout is the order of the day. >> thanks, terry. dom? >> my inside story is a salute to newtown township out in bucks county. they are fighting the state open records law that allows inmates to sit around all day and ask for information about police officers -- where they live,

where they may have lived, what type of training, what's on their log, and demanding that, and the state has said they should get it, so they've gone to court to try to block this. the assembly apparently is working on it. pretty shocking based upon what's going on with cops. >> thanks, dom. george? >> leaders in philadelphia need to focus on the poverty issue, along with jim kenney. philadelphia is the poorest big city in america. 27% of our population lives in poverty, 50% of that in low poverty, families living on $12,000 a year. it's a huge problem. poverty is growing more rapidly in the suburbs than it is in the city. regional leaders have to focus on poverty, along with jim kenney and others. >> thank you, george. christine? >> matt, i heard there's an election tuesday, but we're not just electing a mayor -- we're electing city council members, five at-large city council members. a great choice would be terry tracy, republican at large. he has been endorsed by the black clergy, the f.o.p., afscme, transit workers, the inquirer, and the daily news. with that kind of broad-based support, this is a voice that philadelphia needs in

harrisburg. >> all right. thanks to our insiders. we'll remind you that the polls open on tuesday at 7:00 a.m. here in pennsylvania -- 6:00 a.m. there's elections going on in new jersey out there in the garden state. thanks for watching "inside story." make sure you go out and vote. but before that, watch us on "action news mornings" on monday at 4:30 a.m. have a great sunday, everyone. ♪ >> i'm eva pilgrim, coming up next on "action news," tragedy in montgomery county. a woman is killed when her apartment complex goes up in flames we're live. developing a new warning for parents in our area, police are urging them to double check their children's halloween stash after needles were found in several candy bars. police are investigating after a body is found in an atlantic city hotel.

those stories and the accuweather forecast next on "action news." your immune system doesn't work the way it did when rock was young. so we made fluzone high-dose vaccine... for people 65+. with a high high higher dose of antigen... it's significantly more effective than fluzone vaccine in preventing flu. fluzone high-dose vaccine is approved for people 65 and older. it's not for anyone who's had a severe allergic reaction to any vaccine component, including eggs, egg products, or to a prior dose of any flu vaccine. tell your doctor if you've ever had guillain-barré syndrome. side effects include pain swelling and redness at the injection site; muscle aches, fatigue, headache and fever. other side effects may occur.

if you have other symptoms or problems following vaccination, call your doctor immediately. vaccination may not protect everyone. so, if you hopped around the clock, ask your doctor or pharmacist about fluzone high-dose. fluzone high-dose vaccine. sunday, november 1 i'm eva pilgrim. nydia han off. here some of the stories we're following on "action news." a woman is killed in a three-alarm fire at an apartment complex in montgomery county we're live with the