Abraham faints, Williams talks cop firings and Kenney lands support: NinetyNine’s week in review

At high noon each Friday during Philadelphia’s mayoral-primary season, NinetyNine will post a roundup of noteworthy stories from the previous week. Miss a couple days of coverage, or just want to catch up over the weekend? We’ve got you covered.

From NinetyNine and NewsWorks:

— Lynne Abraham collapses during Philly mayoral debate : Philadelphia mayoral candidate Lynne Abraham fainted Tuesday night during the first televised debate of the campaign. About 10 minutes into the event, as state Sen. Anthony Williams answered a question about school funding, Abraham suddenly fell to the floor. Moderator Jim Rosenfield from NBC10 stopped the debate as her opponents helped her to her feet.

— A day after fainting, Lynne Abraham hits the campaign trail morning through night [photo gallery]: As chance would have it, NinetyNine previously scheduled a tag-along day for our candidate photo-gallery series with Abraham on Wednesday. The idea of postponing was never broached, leaving photographer Tracie Van Auken with hours on end to watch a candidate regain her footing from breakfast till well after dinner.

— Kenney locks down support of Northwest Philly political leaders: City and state elected officials gathered at a West Oak Lane restaurant on Monday morning to throw their support behind mayoral candidate Jim Kenney. The event, held at Relish on Ogontz Avenue, featured nine ward leaders, state Reps. Dwight Evans, Stephen Kinsey and Cherelle Parker, and City Councilwomen Cindy Bass and Marian Tasco.

— Kenney makes history – will it matter? (Off Mic): Dave Davies had been covering Philadelphia mayoral elections since 1983, and not once in those 32 years could he remember a white mayoral candidate running against a well-known black candidate in a competitive primary getting multiple endorsements from African-American elected officials. That changed Monday.

— Tony Williams: Fire police officers who use disparaging terms about race, sexual orientation: At a Thursday afternoon endorsement event, mayoral candidate Tony Williams said, “If a police officer, I don’t care if it’s a man or a woman, African American or not African American, if certain words part their lips to disparage an ethnic group, a gender, a person of a certain sexual orientation or faith, they should be fired.”

— Williams campaign admits violations (Off Mic): It’s never a good day for a political candidate when his campaign is cited by the Philadelphia Ethics Board for campaign finance violations. Such is the fate of mayoral candidate state Sen. Anthony Williams.

— Abraham, Williams hit speed bumps in race for Philly mayor (NewsWorks Tonight): Tuesday night, one candidate, former District Attorney Lynne Abraham, collapsed on stage during a televised debate. On Wednesday, another candidate, state Sen. Anthony Williams was cited by the Philadelphia Ethics Board for violations of the city’s campaign finance laws.

— NewsWorks podcast: ‘Upstairs at the P&P’ offers unfiltered opinions on Philly politics: Ever wonder what political journalists talk about when they’re schmoozing after hours? NewsWorks’ new podcast “Upstairs at the P&P” offers you some of the unvarnished opinions of local journalists. This week, the gang offers thoughts on the Philadelphia mayor’s race.

— Doug Oliver hits the subway in pursuit of votes [photo gallery]: In the first installment of a photo-gallery series through which NinetyNine will embed with mayoral candidates before the May 19 primary, Tracie Van Auken accompanied Doug Oliver on a morning canvass along the Broad Street Line.

— Mayoral candidates discuss youth-violence issues at Dobbins High forum: Six of Philadelphia’s seven mayoral candidates fielded questions inside a gymnasium at North Philadelphia’s Dobbins High School on Wednesday afternoon during Philadelphia CeaseFire and the Philadelphia Youth Commission’s Youth Violence Prevention Summit.

— Abraham, Kenney, Williams vow to end ‘stop and frisk,’ support Ramsey: All three front-runners in the race to be Philadelphia’s next mayor are swinging at the police tactic known as “stop and frisk,” with each pledging to end the practice completely.

— Philly mayoral candidates call for integration in behavioral health services: Philadelphia mayoral hopeful Lynne Abraham says her mother’s battle with mental illness and ultimate suicide will allow her to run the city’s behavioral health services with compassion and understanding. Abraham and the five other Democratic hopefuls spoke at a candidate’s forum on behavioral health Thursday afternoon at WHYY.

— The updated Philadelphia Mayoral-Race Endorsement Tracker: What groups have lent their endorsement support to which candidates? Check it here.

From elsewhere:

— Is April 6 the day Kenney won the Democratic primary? (The Next Mayor): Seen in the rearview mirror a few months from now, April 6 may go down as the day Jim Kenney clinched victory in the Democratic primary for mayor. That’s the day the Irish-Catholic ex-City Councilman won the endorsement of a coalition of black ward and political leaders from the city’s Northwest section.

— Racial politics not new for Philadelphia (The Next Mayor/Inquirer): With African Americans generally allotted votes on the same basis as whites, race remains an important factor in determining who wins certain elections. That is particularly so in Philadelphia and other cities where black voters who support white candidates can expect to have their loyalties questioned.

— Black issues take center stage at mayoral forum (The Next Mayor): The week’s fourth mayoral forum, hosted by the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists, focused on issues that disproportionately impact black Philadelphians: Poverty, policing and education.

— Abraham says she’s too fit to quit (The Next Mayor/Inquirer): The day after fainting during the first televised mayoral debate, an upbeat Lynne Abraham determinedly went about her campaign, refusing to allow even 50 Cent to get in her way. With the rap star’s “In Da Club” blaring as an intro, the 74-year-old former district attorney good-naturedly endured a request that she, along with the other would-be mayors, dance her way to the candidates’ table at a forum at Dobbins High School in North Philadelphia.

— How Lynne Abraham’s Collapse Changes the Mayor’s Race (Citified): Whatever you think of Lynne Abraham, it was a distressing scene to watch. And it was, for Abraham’s electoral prospects, a potentially devastating moment.

— Oliver’s hit man targets Lynne (The Next Mayor): When Lynne Abraham collapsed at the beginning of Tuesday night’s debate, some of us at the Kimmel Center thought the worst … so we all breathed a sigh of relief when the former district attorney quickly regained consciousness and sat up in a chair. But mayoral rival Doug Oliver’s campaign has its doubts. “PR stunt or for real?” Bellevue Media Group tweeted out Wednesday morning with a link to the debate story and a video of Abraham, 74, falling to the ground while state Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams was answering the first question of the evening. Hashtag: #TheCollapse.

— City Ethics Board Faults Tony Williams for Major Campaign Finance Violations (Citified): After months of investigation, the Philadelphia Board of Ethics today released a carefully-worded settlement agreement with mayoral candidate Anthony Williams that requires his campaign to pay $8,000 in fines, forfeit to the city $17,250 in illegal campaign contributions and to freeze another $62,927 now in his campaign account. Those are big numbers, but not unprecedented ones.

— Williams rips Philly.com over tax credits (The Next Mayor): Mayoral hopeful and state Sen. Anthony Williams defended a controversial educational tax credit program during a radio appearance Tuesday morning on 900AM-WURD, though he also distanced himself from the program he has previously touted as a hallmark of his public service.

— Fine over campaign finance violations raises questions about Williams (Al Dia): The review’s findings follow numerous journalistic reports about independent third-party organizations contributing “dark money” to both Williams’ mayoral and senatorial campaign accounts. Williams has never denied his campaign’s third-party donations, simultaneously insisting that he is “owned by no one.”

— After the fall: Is this the end for Lynne Abraham? (The Next Mayor/Daily News): This was supposed to be Lynne Abraham’s moment, the first televised debate in a mayoral campaign in which she seemed to be losing ground by the day. It was 60 minutes of free TV time for Abraham, but her legs gave out at the 10-minute mark.

— Sparks fly over mayoral candidate’s comment about cops and black men (The Next Mayor/Daily News): The youngest black mayoral candidate’s sin, as far as I can tell, was daring to consider more than one point of view on the crisis of police officers — often white ones — gunning down black men. But after a mayoral candidate forum last week, some suggested Doug Oliver had compromised his candidacy.

— Spending wisely (and raising taxes?) as next mayor (The Next Mayor): City spending isn’t a sexy issue, unless you’re a taxpayer. Juggling services, like trash pickup, inspections and policing, with taxation is one of the mayor’s biggest tasks.

— Who Are the Best and Worst Ward Leaders in Philly? (Citified): The wonderful people at Code for Philly have created a fun new website about Philadelphia’s ward leaders. You may have thought, quite reasonably, that such a feat was impossible. Ward leaders are many things, but “fun” is not usually one of them. But fun they are—when turned into virtual baseball cards that can be sorted and ranked on metrics such as voter turnout and the total number of vacancies in committee people ranks.