But Mayor, He's Made with Bits of Real Black Panther

Philly's Mayor puts the conservative hysteria about some costumed guy standing outside a polling place today in proper perspective:

"It's nonsense. It's a guy standing on the street with some kind of outfit on," Nutter told Salon by phone this afternoon. "A guy standing on the street, if he's not within 10 feet of the actual voting, he's within the law. If he's not doing anything -- touching anybody, interfering with the right to vote -- this is America, he has the right to stand on the sidewalk in whatever outfit he wants to stand there in, with the exception of his birthday suit."

Republicans have not been amused by the Black Panther mini-scandal, but Nutter said they'd have to try harder if they wanted to find evidence of problems in Philadelphia's election. "They gotta find something to complain about," Nutter said. "We have 1,681 polling places here in the city. We got hundreds of thousands of people voting ... And we got one guy standing on the sidewalk, and now the fate of this entire candidacy is revolving around a guy standing on the sidewalk?"