Milton: Candidate with nothing to lose

There’s an old adage in sports that a top-ranked team should be wary of playing a team that has nothing to lose.

This comes to mind as it appears Milton Street may actually try and run a campaign against Michael Nutter in the spring mayoral primary.

Street’s long resume includes service in the state Senate. His more recent resume includes bankruptcy and service in a federal prison. That, friends, is a candidate with nothing to lose.

Milton Street breezed through city hall yesterday to make sure reporters understand he has a platform and a formal campaign announcement planned on Wednesday.

He says as mayor he wants to hire 3,000 ex-offenders to patrol their communities at a cost of $61 million a year. But he figures it won’t really cost anything, because he’ll save the cost of them returning to prison.

He doesn’t expect to need a big campaign fund, because he’ll rely on tens of thousands of ex-offenders texting and Facebooking. He says he’ll get support from city union members looking for a contract, and from African-American communities angry about the police department’s stop and frisk program. .

He will be provocative and unpredictable. He will say and do outrageous things and thus get media coverage.

It will be fascinating to see if and when Nutter decides to respond to him.

Street told reporters yesterday he figures Nutter won’t debate him.

“He can’t out debate me,” Street said. “Why would he jump in the ring with a gorilla?”