PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 9 (UPI) -- Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter trounced a recent convert to the Republican Party in Tuesday's election to win a second term.
Nutter defeated Karen Brown 3-1, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported. An independent candidate picked up about 3 percent of the vote.
Brown, a former parochial school teacher and civil servant, was a Democratic committeewoman until recently. Her main pitch to voters was her status as a woman running for mayor.
While Nutter cruised through the election, he faces a difficult time in the next four years, the Inquirer said. He has laid out an ambitious program in a city hit hard by the recession, including changing the tax system, reducing violence in black neighborhoods and possibly the most important and toughest job -- improving the troubled public schools.
The mayor, barred by city law from seeking a third consecutive term, faces the usual second-term problem -- that the City Council, the unions and the power brokers know he will be gone in four years, the newspaper noted.
