Marcia Gelbart

This article originally appeared in The Inquirer on Nov. 16, 2007. Against a backdrop of relentless and unsettling violence in the city, Mayor-elect Michael Nutter yesterday named former Washington Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey as Philadelphia’s next police commissioner. Ramsey oversaw a significant drop in crime and murders in the nation's capital, and Nutter made it clear that would be his mandate here as well. The 57-year-old career cop said he was unfazed by the assignment.

It wasn't just at the ballot box that Mayor Nutter waged a winning campaign. The nation's top political consultants have decided his television ads were the best produced last year of any political race in the country. "Wow! Really?" Nutter said when told yesterday.

For all the poll metrics, the demographic targeting, the technology, and the insider jargon, political strategy in any given campaign usually comes down to a simple imperative and boots on the ground. Democrats, for instance, know that to have a shot at winning races for Senate and governor in Pennsylvania, they need to push their most loyal Philadelphia backers to vote Nov. 2, carrying the city by a wide enough margin to offset expected losses elsewhere.