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Murphy comes out swinging in Pittsburgh mayoral campaign
Tuesday, January 30, 2001 By Timothy McNulty, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
The lunch menu at the Overbrook Senior Center yesterday featured roast beef with gravy, whipped potatoes, spinach, rye bread and grapes. It was a delectable setting for Mayor Tom Murphy to officially announce his re-election campaign and to stage a food fight, which is what his campaign is shaping up to be.
Murphy spent a good portion of his announcement address comparing the accomplishments of his seven years in office with those of City Council President Bob O'Connor, a former restaurant executive who is his main challenger in the Democratic primary 31/2 months away.
"Being mayor is very different than being a candidate for mayor. Running the city is a whole lot tougher than running a fast-food restaurant," Murphy said to some 150 people, a third of them seniors, in the center's cafeteria.
"It's more than showing up for ribbon cuttings," he slowly intoned, pausing for emphasis between each word. "It's making tough calls early and not waffling later when the heat is on."
Such was the often ornery tone of the campaign event, in which Murphy tried to present himself to voters as a battler who gets things done and O'Connor, who worked for Pappan's and Roy Rogers restaurants before joining council in 1992, as a relative unknown who avoids confrontation.
Murphy used his 17-minute speech to recite a laundry list of initiatives he has promoted since taking office in 1994, which jibes with the campaign slogan that was unfurled on a banner behind him: "Results for Pittsburgh."
But the biggest ovations came from the crowd when Murphy took swipes at O'Connor. To Murphy's logic, even his own faults as mayor were constructive and distanced him from his challenger.
Murphy said he had "learned and grown" from mistakes in the past.
"If I have been impatient and stubborn" in those times, he said, it was only because he was battling with "those who want to protect the status quo. If I have fought too hard, it is because I love this city so much."
One of those mistakes includes Murphy's promotion of so-called "stealth" stadium financing by the state in 1998. O'Connor has long chided Murphy for his handling of the issue, which made Murphy enemies in Harrisburg and further rankled some voters who had voted against stadium financing in a November 1997 referendum.
O'Connor almost rode that anti-stadium sentiment into a primary victory in 1997 -- he lost by 8,182 votes out of 66,730 cast -- but Murphy didn't flinch from the subject yesterday.
"This April, we'll throw out the first pitch in the new home of the Pittsburgh Pirates -- that's not the Portland Pirates or the Nashville Pirates," Murphy said. "When opening day gets close, you can be sure our critics will be calling all over town looking for tickets -- even the doubting Bobs."
Murphy's campaign announcement yesterday came in the wake of comments to the Post-Gazette that he would be "scared" if O'Connor became mayor. But if the barbs were designed to make O'Connor strike back, it wasn't working.
O'Connor said Murphy's scare tactic had gone too far, upsetting his 16-year-old son, Corey, who heard about Murphy's comments on television. But he stopped short of fighting Murphy's fire with some of his own.
"I'm disappointed that [Murphy] would go personal like that. But I'm here working for the people of Pittsburgh. That's my goal and my message," he said.
At the campaign event yesterday morning, most of the people in the crowded Overbrook lunchroom were either city department heads or longtime Murphy friends. Nevertheless, Murphy began his address by introducing himself, saying: "I'm Tom Murphy and I'm running for one of the most exciting jobs there is, mayor of the city of Pittsburgh."
Joining Murphy as he spoke were a public housing resident, a retired police officer, a young developer and a union carpenter in a battered hard hat, who were gathered in a semi-circle behind him. They lauded the mayor for backing proposals that had helped them.
Murphy launched into a list of initiatives he had promoted over two terms in office, a list which he is sure to repeat again and again over the next several weeks as he reintroduces himself to city residents who last returned him to office in 1997.
Murphy stressed drops in unemployment and crime, two upgrades last month in the city's bond rating, and riverfront redevelopment projects in the South Side, Washington's Landing at Herr's Island and elsewhere.
He also said he will soon unveil an "action plan" of promises for his third term that will build on those initiatives and promote environment programs, economic development, neighborhoods and cultural institutions.
Campaign manager David Caliguiri said the plan is a "work in progress" and he did not know when it would be released.
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