Voter Resignation

People in West Philly's Carroll Park might vote, but they aren't sure why.

by Tom Namako

Modern Democracy

William Campbell, the self-proclaimed "most cerebral man in West Philly," spends hours talking to — and sometimes at — his friends about the poverty, crime and joblessness in his neighborhood, Carroll Park. "We see it all the time around here," he says. "You buy into the dream when you're young, then grow up to find out it doesn't exist."

Though so much of the city is abuzz with talk of "hope" from presidential candidates, Campbell, cleaning trash in front of his home on 55th Street and Girard Avenue, says he hasn't heard much from Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama about the local problems that matter to him. "People out this way are doing a lot of listening, and not a lot of believing what [the candidates] say," he intones.

Michael T. Regan WHERE CANDIDATES DARE NOT TREAD: A streetscape in North Philly.

By "out this way," Campbell means West Philly, but he also means the city's high-crime and poverty-stricken neighborhoods — places that don't often receive visits or attention from presidential candidates, and haven't this election, either. On March 18, when Clinton and Obama swung into town, the police locked down the northeast wing of City Hall for Clinton, and Obama tucked into the National Constitution Center to address an invitation-only crowd. By day's end, Clinton was in the suburbs and Obama wasn't seen again in public.

Over the next several weeks, as campaigns besiege the city in advance of the April 22 primary, City Paper will run a series, called "Politics Lost," taking a look at how (and if) those campaigns are resonating "out this way." We'll ask if residents are following the race, if they've seen the campaigns, and what they think about the whole thing. We begin this week in Campbell's home, Carroll Park.

For three decades, the biggest problem in Carroll Park, the neighborhood, was Carroll Park, the park. Drug dealers and prostitutes controlled the grounds until the 1990s, when neighbors and the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society organized for new funding and a makeover.

Today, the row homes along the park are nice, but the surrounding area still struggles. Abandoned buildings are common. Crime and poverty reflect citywide rates — that is to say, there's a lot — and none of the political posters that dot lawns and windows in some neighborhoods can be seen here.

Still, in the past two presidential primaries, the ward that includes Carroll Park turned out to vote at a rate consistent with the city average: 15 percent of eligible voters in 2000; 22 percent in 2004.

Residents City Paper spoke with recently said they intended to vote in this primary, but also displayed a profound skepticism about the usefulness of political engagement.*

Julia Haynes owns a small bodega on Frazier and Thompson streets, which sells mostly cold drinks and snacks. She's voted in every election for the last 30 years. This time, she says, she's voting for Obama, although she doesn't think he or Clinton will make a difference in her life. "Can they bring me more business, God knows how I need it? No. Can they stop the store from being held up every few years? No."

Mohammed El-Nasir, 27, a short-order cook with a GED, says he votes for candidates who promise to create jobs. But he doesn't think that promise is always kept. "Once in a while you hear [a politician] say, 'I created more jobs, look here,'" he says. "But we know the difference between what's a good job and what's not. The good jobs won't come back any time soon."

As for Campbell, he's finished collecting trash, and is stuffing garbage bags into his car trunk so a homeless person can't reopen them. He's an Allied Barton security guard, and is about to leave for his shift. "I'm guarding shit now," he says, "and I'll be guarding shit no matter who gets elected."

(tom.namako@citypaper.net)

* This paragraph has been corrected. The original compared Carroll Park's primary turnout to the statewide general turnout and concluded that Carroll Park's turnout was "dismal". In fact, the neighborhood's turnout is not extraordinarily low.