Clout Extra: Sky rocks, bromances, pizza

IF YOU'RE IN the market for a serious recap of last night's debate at Temple University among the six Democratic mayoral candidates, Ryan Briggs has you covered.

But we here at Philly Clout know you're looking for something else. Something different.

Collected here are . . . drum roll, please . . . The Most Interesting Moments from Last Night's Debate:

The candidates were asked to disclose their guilty pleasures. No one ventured into Fifty Shades of Grey territory - thank God - but Jim Kenney, Doug Oliver and Milton Street offered the most interesting responses. Kenney said he sometimes eats pepperoni pizza after 11 p.m., even when he knows he should just go to bed. "I used to be able to eat a whole pie," he said, with just a hint of self-loathing.

Oliver said he likes to zone out on "mindless TV," citing "Empire" on Fox and "Being Mary Jane" on BET as two examples. Street spoke of "grinding up green, leafy vegetables to deal with free radicals running around in my stomach." Yeah. You read that right.

Kenney and Oliver, who sat next to each other, are becoming best buds. The ex-councilman had a chance to attack state Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams or former District Attorney Lynne Abraham - his top rivals - with one question, but he instead praised Oliver's civility and tossed him a softball about improving Philadelphia Gas Works, where Oliver was a senior vice president.

Oliver then asked Kenney to elaborate on his statement at a previous forum about whom he considered the second-best candidate in the race.

"You identified that would be me. I would like you to expand on why it is that you believe that, if not you, that I would be the best-suited man to be mayor of the city of Philadelphia," Oliver said, landing the biggest laugh of the night.

Oh, you're smooth, Doug. Kenney then called Oliver, 40, young and handsome, but added, "I don't want to date you."

We have a solution: Oliver ain't getting elected this year. So if Kenney is elected mayor, he hires Oliver as his chief of staff. Then, Oliver runs for mayor after Kenney's term ends and is swept into office by all the schoolchildren he wowed at a forum yesterday who by then will be eligible to vote.

The end.

Kenney took the high road and declined to blame Williams for a lack of funding from Harrisburg.

"He fights for that every day," Kenney said.

But we know that these two aren't heading over to the Swank for a cold one anytime soon.

As the debate was underway, the Williams campaign was unveiling a black-and-white attack ad that basically accuses Kenney of sanctioning police brutality. The ad pounces on a 1997 quote from Kenney bemoaning restrictions being placed on police: "You can't use the flashlights, you can't use the clubs on the head, you can't shoot anybody. What's next? Are we gonna hand them feather dusters?"

Unfortunately for Kenney - who says his views have changed dramatically since 1997 - the ad begins to air today.

Co-moderator Dave Davies asked Abraham what, exactly, she's done to prepare to be mayor, hinting that she may have been overly confident in her ability to take on the job. In addition to her storied career in the courts and in the District Attorney's Office, Abraham said, she's been consulting with financial, zoning and city-planning experts to get her up to speed on the challenges she'd face.

Davies pressed Street on whether voters could trust him, given the prison term he served for failing to file tax returns - and for the huge sums he pocketed as a consultant to a company that landed an airport-maintenance contract while his brother, John Street, was mayor. Street argued with Davies' characterization, insisting that everything about the consulting gig had been on the up-and-up. He simply had applied "skills" learned as a state senator to "work my way through the system."

Street suggested that all the candidates were offering too-good-to-be-true solutions to the city's mind-boggling pension problems. The only logical thing to do, he said, would be to ask financial experts from local universities to study the issue and offer recommendations. If we know one thing for sure, it's that you can't "stretch a net across the sky, catch meteorites and sell sky rocks," Street helpfully pointed out.

- David Gambacorta and William Bender