FBI probe seen to boost Philadelphia mayor in polls

PHILADELPHIA -- In the final weeks of his campaign for reelection, Mayor John Street may have received a key boost from an unlikely source: FBI agents who bugged his office.

Even though Democrats outnumber Republicans in Philadelphia by about 5 to 1, Street had only a 6- to 8-point lead over municipal finance analyst Sam Katz, a Democrat turned Republican, in their upcoming Nov. 4 rematch, according to news media polls released early in October.

Then, Oct. 7, everything changed. Police found a listening device in the mayor's office, the mayor made it public, and the FBI acknowledged planting the bugs. By the next week, Street was eliciting sympathy and had recast his opponents to include the federal government and President Bush.

Invoking protection from a higher authority, the mayor paraphrased the Bible, shouting, "I walk by faith, not by sight," to about 200 unionized health-care workers and a collection of officials -- two congressmen, several City Council members, and a dozen judges -- at a rally in a downtown hotel ballroom Oct. 14. "Sam Katz wants to do to Philadelphia what George Bush is doing to the country," Street told the crowd.

The crowd roared, "Four more years, four more years!" as Street blamed Bush for unemployment and "40 million people without health insurance."

The discovery of the listening device "sucked all the oxygen out of the political environment for 2 1/2 weeks," said Katz, who was making allegations of cronyism and corruption at City Hall before the federal investigation was made public.

Katz called the mayor's response "totally manipulated."

"We never would have heard about this investigation if John Street hadn't outed himself," Katz said. "To his credit, he took a lemon and made lemonade."

Now, the latest poll for the Philadelphia Daily News and the Fox TV affiliate, released Wednesday, put the race at 49 percent for Street and 36 percent for Katz. Another poll, conducted Monday by the CBS-affiliated television and radio station and Temple University, put Street's support at 54 percent, with Katz pulling 37 percent of voters.

Even in a poll that gave Street only a 5-point lead, published last Sunday in The Philadelphia Inquirer, 62 percent of respondents indicated they believe it is "possible to very likely" the FBI investigation is a political dirty trick by Republicans in Washington. That poll of likely voters, conducted Oct. 21 to 23, found that 82 percent of black respondents supported Street, who is African-American, and 71 percent of white respondents supported Katz, who is white. Sixty percent of those polled said the federal probe would not influence their vote, and 40 percent of whites and 88 percent of blacks said they believed the probe could be a dirty trick.

The Inquirer endorsed Katz, praising his vision and his pledge to reduce taxes. The Daily News endorsed Street, praising his efforts for schools and neighborhood safety.

About two weeks after the bugs were found, US Attorney Patrick L. Meehan told reporters, "Certainly, nobody wanted to have any negative impact on the election." He said, "No one ought to draw conclusions regarding any person."

Soon afterward, the news media, crediting unnamed sources, reported that no incriminating evidence was recorded by the bugs in the mayor's office. According to published reports, the federal agents are investigating allegations the Street administration awarded city contracts in exchange for campaign contributions.

Since the discovery of the bugs, federal investigators have informed the mayor he is a subject, not a target, of a secret two-year investigation of alleged corruption. Agents have raided offices of his associates, reportedly subpoenaed bank accounts belonging to Street, his wife, and his son, and seized the handheld Blackberry computers the mayor used to send e-mail.

The Street associates targeted are all African-American, sparking charges of racial profiling. The Katz campaign dubbed the allegations racially divisive, and federal officials have denied them.

Meanwhile, Katz's business practices are the subject of a civil case in federal court, where a former associate has accused him of embezzlement. Katz tried unsuccessfully to keep the court record sealed during the election campaign.

"It was not anybody's intention for the investigation to become public during the election," said FBI special agent Linda Vizi, referring to the probe of Street's administration. "It was going on before the election cycle and based on factual information developed by the Philadelphia division of the FBI."

But some doubt that explanation. US Representative Bob Brady, head of the Democratic City Committee, said, "They tried to derail the campaign with the bugs, and it backfired. It energized his base. "They say they have the investigation going on for two years and it will go on well past the election, then why put bugs in the mayor's office right at the height of the campaign?" Brady said. "I'm not an investigator, but everybody around politics knows that the mayor's office is swept for bugs every two weeks. There was nobody's life at stake.

"And they found nothing, `no corruption, no sex, and no profanity,' " said Brady, quoting Street's response to published reports that the listening device in place for two weeks recorded nothing incriminating.

"I have never seen anything like this in any major election, nothing like this in any election anywhere," said Fred Voight, head of the Committee of 70, a Philadelphia voter watchdog group. "The event -- and you have to call it an event -- was something totally out of the blue, totally unexpected. Do I think that the FBI wanted the bug discovered? I don't think so. This is embarrassing for them."