Poll: Mayor Nutter is popular. Who knew?

Catherine Lucey at PhillyClout alerts us to surprising news:

A new poll shows that 53 percent of Philadelphians approve of Mayor Nutter’s job performance as mayor, compared with 32 percent who disapprove.

Wait for it…

Residents are evenly split when you ask about Nutter’s ability to manage the budget, with 47 percent showing confidence in his skills and 46 percent lacking confidence. And Nutter continues to receive lower ratings from black residents, than white residents — just 43 percent of black Philadelphians say he’s doing a good job, compared with 65 percent of white residents. While just 21 percent of white residents disapprove of Nutter’s performance, 43 percent of black residents disapprove.

So we like the mayor. We just don’t like how he’s handling one of the most important parts of his job — the part, in fact, that has received the most public attention over the last two years. Why the disconnect?

The Daily Show: Mayor Nutter loves caulk

It’s just a split-second, but Philly’s mayor makes an appearance in the prelude to The Daily Show’s “most immature montage ever”:

ACT UP protests the shortage of AIDS housing in Philly

How I spent my lunch hour:

Harrisburg to Philly: Do Not Drop Dead

And thank goodness for that.

Is Mayor Nutter bluffing on the budget?

Over at The Clog, Isaiah Thompson writes that Mayor Nutter won’t really shut down the city and lay off all those cops and firefighters if Harrisburg doesn’t come through on the city’s budget package. It’s a bluff, and everybody knows it:

But there are two problems with the mass bluff – if, of course, that’s what it is.

For one thing, not everyone gets it. And the police officers and librarians and such watching this drama unfold probably aren’t making popcorn for the show: I imagine they’re scared.

For another, it paints the situation as a false either/or situation: either Harrisburg passes our plan or its fiscal doomsday.

There’s a third problem for Nutter, actually, and it’s a huge one for him. What if Harrisburg calls the bluff? After all, it’s getting pretty late in the day for legislators to sign off on the budget package. If they don’t meet Nutter’s deadline, two things can happen:

• Nutter goes ahead with the shutdown and the layoffs, potentially burning himself into the pages of Philly history as the most-unpopular mayor ever. And that would be saying something wouldn’t it?

• Nutter admits he was bluffing, keeps the libraries open and the cops on the job — and immediately loses all credibility forever.

It’s no exaggeration to say that Nutter has put his entire mayorality on the line here. He’s in the corner. The only way he succeeds and lives to fight another day — even with some diminished support — is if Harrisburg approves the city’s budget package, oh, yesterday.

UPDATE: Well, if it’s a bluff, maybe it worked.