Davies: Where in the mayoral-campaign world is Johnny Doc?

On Tuesday’s NewsWorks Tonight, WHYY’s Dave Davies got to wondering about why labor leader/political kingmaker/big Jim Kenney-backer John Dougherty “is hardly ever mentioned in connection with the contest.”

 

From Davies’ Off Mic column about the absence:

 

[H]ow much help is Dougherty giving Kenney’s mayoral effort?

Nobody knows, because the union’s donations are apparently being routed through a super PAC that isn’t easy to get answers from.

I left five un-returned messages last week for Sprinkler Fitters union leader Wayne Miller, identified last year as chairman of Building a Better Pa, the super PAC that’s running ads promoting Kenney.

Local 98 gave that group 65 percent of the money it raised in 2014, but neither the PAC nor Dougherty’s union will say whether Local 98 has given a little, or a lot, or even all of the more than $600,000 the committee has spent on pro-Kenney ads this year.

So we don’t see Doc much, or his money. But if he is funding an independent expenditure effort for Kenney, they can’t legally coordinate spending. I asked Kenney if that makes it a little weird when he goes to the union hall.

“No, because we don’t talk about that,” he said. “He doesn’t talk about it, and I certainly don’t bring it up, and I don’t know whether he is or he isn’t [funding the super PAC].”

You can read (and hear) Davies’ piece on Dougherty via this link.

Oh, and if you’re left wanting more, NinetyNine is planning a sit down with Dougherty sometime soon.