Taubenberger is
looking for a miracle

By Tom Waring
Times Staff Writer

Al Taubenberger believes he is qualified to be mayor, or he never would have announced a bid to lead the nation’s sixth-largest city.
While unopposed in the Republican primary, he had the opportunity to sit next to the five major Democratic candidates at 60 or so forums throughout Philadelphia.
A civic and business leader largely unknown outside the Northeast, he squared off against two congressmen, a veteran state representative, a former city councilman and a millionaire businessman.
It was at those forums that Taubenberger was certain he belonged in the mayoral race.
"I know as much as these guys do," he thought to himself. "They don’t know it all. I have the experience and temperament to be a very good mayor."
As it turned out, former Councilman Michael Nutter outpolled businessman Tom Knox, U.S. Reps. Bob Brady and Chaka Fattah and state Rep. Dwight Evans to capture the Democratic nomination.
Taubenberger and Nutter are the two choices in front of Philadelphia voters, who will pick a new mayor on Nov. 6. Mayor John Street, a Democrat, is prohibited by the Home Rule Charter from seeking a third four-year term.
The odds are stacked against Taubenberger, a 53-year-old from Fox Chase, becoming the first mayor from the Northeast. And he knows it.
Democrats outnumber Republicans by a ratio of 5-to-1. In the last 14 mayoral elections, Democrats have won them all.
"Everybody thinks I’m a nice guy, but that I don’t have much of a chance," Taubenberger said. "There hasn’t been a Republican elected in sixty years. They think I’m underfunded, and that Nutter is a very good candidate and the favorite of the newspapers."
Taubenberger loves a challenge and has faced a few over the years.
Alfred Wilhelm Taubenberger is the only child of the late Alfred and Betty Taubenberger, both German immigrants who met in the United States.
Young Alfred spent the first six years of his life living in a rowhome at 1121 Rosalie St. in Oxford Circle. His aunt and uncle operated Karl’s, a neighborhood deli at Frontenac and Alcott streets.
Alfred and Betty Taubenberger wanted to go into the business, so they moved to a house at 7137 Oxford Ave. in Burholme. The property doubled as the home of Alfred’s Deli.
The couple’s son had a normal childhood. He attended Kennedy Crossan School and Woodrow Wilson Junior High. He hung out with friends at Bingham and St. Vincent streets, raising turtles and playing basketball, hockey, Wiffle ball and bat tag, a game in which players threw a Wiffle bat at one another.
At Northeast High School (Class of 1971), the teenager played on the soccer team. In those years, he also worked at the family deli, slicing meat, stocking shelves and delivering orders. He learned to speak fluent German.
After graduation, he attended Penn State and played on the freshman soccer team. Recognizing that his chances to make the varsity team were nil, he temporarily transferred as a sophomore to play for the team at the university’s branch campus in Abington.
The young man also rethought his decision to become a history teacher after being told that it would take a couple of years to find a job in the field. He changed majors and graduated with a degree in agronomy.
Taubenberger used that degree to land a job as grounds supervisor at Friends Hospital for three and a half years. While there, he caught the political bug. He was elected a 53rd Ward Republican committeeman, then helped Charlie Dougherty win a congressional seat in 1978. He worked in constituent relations for four years until Dougherty lost a bid for a third term.
Back in the private sector, he worked for the Council for Labor and Industry, helping Philadelphia-area companies fend off foreign competition. A couple of years later, he traded that job and his Republican voter registration card for a job with Democratic City Councilwoman Joan Krajewski, serving as her liaison to the business community.
A year later, he ventured out on his own, creating a business that imported wine from Germany.
"I had a lot of fun and learned a little bit about wine," he said.
But he didn’t make any money, so he closed the business and began selling Schmidt’s beer to taverns and beer distributors.
By 1987, friend Jack Kelly was the Republican challenger to Democrat Pat Hughes in the 7th Councilmanic District. Taubenberger was campaign manager for Kelly, who upset Hughes on the coattails of mayoral candidate Frank L. Rizzo. He served as the new councilman’s chief of staff for four years until Kelly was narrowly defeated by Dan McElhatton. (Kelly returned to Council in 2004 as an at-large member.)
Taubenberger stayed on the payroll, working on the technical staff and reporting directly to the new Council president, John Street.
Soon, though, he learned that the Greater Northeast Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce was looking for a president. In June 1992, the chamber named him to the position, and he’s been there ever since.
Looking back at his professional career, Taubenberger considers himself blessed.
"I’ve loved every job I ever had," he said.
Obviously, he would love to be mayor. Whether he gets the chance is the question.
Vito Canuso is chairman of the Republican City Committee, which doesn’t have the money to bankroll a campaign. Taubenberger has raised only about $20,000, a sum dwarfed by a fund-raising whiz like Nutter. Canuso also knows that Taubenberger is going up against a candidate who has become the darling of newspaper editorial boards.
Still, the party chairman can count on his candidate working hard. He thinks voters will like his background in government and business and his service on the Tax Reform Commission. He hopes voters link Nutter to a Democratic Party that, in his opinion, has failed to make the city safe and rid the government of a pay-to-play culture.
"Al Taubenberger will bring a whole new regime to governing the city," Canuso said.
Councilman Brian O’Neill (R-10th dist.) acknowledges that Nutter — with whom he served for 14-plus years — is a tough opponent. At the same time, he believes that Taubenberger is a better candidate than any of the Democrats Nutter dispatched in the primary.
The councilman dismisses talk that Taubenberger is mere "token" opposition, saying he will take his message and background to all neighborhoods.
"Al is really well-rounded and well-qualified," he said.
Mike McAleer, Democratic leader of Ward 66B in the Far Northeast, has met Taubenberger and likes him. But the veteran politico said his lack of money and name recognition outside the local business community will hurt him.
"Joe Sixpack don’t know him," he said.
Like all Republicans, Taubenberger needs a huge plurality of votes in the Northeast to have a chance to win citywide. It’s not going to happen, McAleer predicted.
"I think Nutter will do quite well in the Northeast," he said, adding that he expects the Democrat to narrowly win the 66th Ward.
Taubenberger, who heads the Burholme Community Town Watch and Civic Association, will stress his Northeast roots in campaign stops in the area. He and his first wife, Barbara, who divorced in 1992, raised three children — Matt, who works for state Rep. George Kenney; Elizabeth, a teacher; and Sarah, who graduates from Central High School on Friday and plans to attend Penn State-Abington — in his boyhood home on Oxford Avenue.
In 1998, he married his current wife, Joanne, a teacher. They met as part of then-state Rep. Chris Wogan’s team. He was campaign manager. She was treasurer. In 2002, they moved to a new development on Loney Street in Fox Chase. They have a 7-year-old son, William, who attends Immanuel Lutheran School. The family attends services at both Immanuel Lutheran Church and St. Cecilia Roman Catholic Church.
Taubenberger repeats an oft-heard remark in local political circles, that the Northeast is ignored by city government.
"That certainly won’t happen in a Taubenberger administration," he said.
There won’t be a Taubenberger administration if the candidate doesn’t expand his base. Ask him what he’ll tell voters during the campaign, and he mentions an aggressive approach to bringing jobs to the city.
"It’s something I do every day at the chamber of commerce," he said.
Taubenberger contends that his salesmanship skills will convince companies to move to the city. He’ll make the pitch in a telephone call and follow up with a personal visit. He’ll work with Council to lower business taxes and expects his policies to grow the economy in such a way that he won’t have to cut the budget.
The new jobs created, he believes, would give hope to the poor and help lower the crime rate. He also wants to hire additional police officers and assign more of them to street patrols. He favors a bill by state Rep. John Perzel that would add more than 1,400 officers to the Philadelphia Police Department.
Other than talking about jobs and crime, Taubenberger hasn’t developed a full platform yet. He notes that the election is still about five months away and voters remain fatigued from all of the campaign commercials during the primary.
Taubenberger wants voters to get to know him first. He’ll meet them in small and large settings, through the news media and on television. He expects to be able to convince donors to open their checkbooks, but he won’t set a specific fund-raising goal.
"Enough to get on TV," he said. "I’m spending the summer raising money."
Money isn’t everything, Taubenberger argues. Knox spent about $11 million of his own fortune and finished 12 percentage points behind Nutter.
For the first time, Taubenberger has the luxury of having the time to raise money. In his two previous runs for political office, it was a sprint to election day.
In 2002, he faced Melissa Brown in the 13th Congressional District primary. She had the party on her side, but he ran well in the city and among conservatives in Montgomery County to take a respectable 45 percent of the vote.
In 2004, Brown won the backing of the city party while Ellen Bard earned the suburban endorsement. Taubenberger thought a Philadelphia conservative could win a three-way race against two Montgomery County moderates, but he finished third.
The campaigns taught him to know the issues, to be decisive, to speak in public and to have the guts to ask people for their vote and their money.
"It was a great experience," he said. "It made me a better candidate for mayor."
Taubenberger did not sulk after his losses, enthusiastically endorsing Brown both times. He also won’t become despondent if he fails in his mayoral bid.
A student during career day at Fox Chase School asked the candidate if he would be sad if he lost.
"Absolutely not," he told the youngster. "Running for mayor is fantastic. It’s a great way to learn the city. And if I lose, I still have a job I really love."
Taubenberger and Nutter have been friendly on the campaign trail, and there is no evidence that either will attack the other the way the Democrats did in the primary.
The Republican calls Nutter "a good man," adding that he’d consider hiring him if he’s elected. And, if Nutter wins and asks him to join his administration as, say, secretary of the Department of Commerce, would he consider the offer? Yes, he would, because of his love for the city.
Taubenberger can cite plenty of reasons for optimism. The city, he believes, is yearning for a passionate leader with a hands-on understanding of the issues. Voters will appreciate his community activism and connection to public education.
As he tries to woo voters, he has to convince the news media that’s he’s not the proverbial sacrificial lamb. As an example, the Philadelphia Inquirer has introduced a feature called "Yo, Mike," giving readers a chance to send their ideas to Nutter. The Taubenberger campaign is lobbying the newspaper to add "Yo, Al" to its editorial page.
The same media outlets that are dismissing Taubenberger, the candidate notes, are the same ones that anointed Fattah as the early front-runner, moved to Brady when he entered the race and sided with Knox when his TV commercials began to resonate with voters.
"Three weeks before the election, nobody thought Michael Nutter would win the Democratic nomination, but he won," he said.
Less than five months before the general election, almost nobody thinks Taubenberger will beat Nutter. The Republican underdog thinks he has a chance to shock the political world.
"I’m on the field, and I’m a very competitive guy," he said. "A lot of things can happen. You just never know." ••
Reporter Tom Waring can be reached at 215-354-3034 or twaring@phillynews.com