A super PAC backing Jeff Brown put Tom Wolf in a TV ad Tom Wolf didn’t want to be in

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: A super PAC backing Jeff Brown for mayor is getting pushback for using images of a politically famous person — without permission — in a television ad.

For a Better Philadelphia, the super PAC that previously angered former first lady Michelle Obama by including her in an ad, is now in trouble with former Gov. Tom Wolf for the same thing.

A PAC ad running this week shows Brown and Wolf smiling in a photo while an announcer notes that Brown serves on the governor’s Workforce Development Board.

“Governor Wolf has not endorsed in the race for mayor in Philadelphia and has no plans to do so,” said a Wolf spokesperson. “As such no campaign or outside entity has been given permission to use his likeness.”

For a Better Philadelphia spokesperson Dan Siegel told Clout the super PAC heard from Wolf’s camp about the ad this week. Siegel said the super PAC is proud of the work Brown did on the board to reduce unemployment.

“We hope that Gov. Wolf is also proud of that too,” he said.

It’s been three weeks since a senior adviser to former President Barack Obama and his wife accused the super PAC of “manipulating” video to suggest an endorsement for Brown that never occurred.

Brown’s campaign, which aired its own television ad using similar footage of Michelle Obama, said it was not meant to suggest that she had endorsed him.

For a Better Philadelphia, which last month reported raising nearly $3 million in 2022 from three nonprofits that have not disclosed their donors, aired the first commercials of the mayor’s race in December.

Brown, who runs a chain of ShopRites and was appointed by Wolf, is still chair of the Workforce Development Board, which includes 40 cabinet members, elected officials, business owners, and union leaders.

Mike Stack III, a graduate of the LA School of Comedy, lives by that show biz axiom: Always leave them wanting more.

So Stack, who represented Northeast Philly in the state Senate from 2001 to 2015 and then served one term as lieutenant governor, will not be a candidate for mayor in the May 16 Democratic primary after an extended flirtation with that possibility.

“I have been nothing but encouraged by the urging and pledges of support from so many others who share my love for this great city,” Stack said while announcing his decision Tuesday. “There are several good candidates in the race and I am confident the good people of Philadelphia will choose a leader to address the serious problems we face and take advantage of the opportunities we are presented.”

Stack, a part-time actor who appeared in Rocky II as a kid, was ousted by primary voters as lieutenant governor in 2018 after four years of controversy.

He briefly ran for City Council in 2019 before dropping out of the race. Stack then moved to Los Angeles to try his hand in drama and comedy, using the stage name “Mikey Stacks.”

Stack first floated a potential campaign for mayor to Clout on the day of the 2022 primary election. He sounded bullish on the idea when we asked again on the day of the 2022 general election.

“If Mike Stack’s in it, I’d bet on Mike Stack,” he said in November.

Stack and the nine declared Democratic candidates for mayor pitched their campaigns last month to their party’s policy committee, which later voted against endorsing any of them.

Stack this week said he “will always keep the door open to returning to public service sometime in the future.”

Candidates seeking spots on the May 16 primary ballot are now more than a week into the arduous three-week season of asking voters to sign nomination petitions.

Then the real fun begins after the March 7 submission deadline, as competitors parse petitions, looking for ways to get opponents booted from the ballot.

Joe Driscoll thinks he has found a way to make it a little easier, with the help of artificial intelligence, also known as AI.

Driscoll, a former deputy city commissioner, developed a system of off-the-shelf AI products to compare petitions to voter registration records. That could help find challengeable signatures — like a Republican who signed a Democrat’s petition or a suburban voter who signed for a city candidate.

Driscoll said that could free campaigns to spend more time looking for the real shenanigans in petition season, like “kitchen-table jobs,” when petition circulators skip the circulation and use voter lists to forge names and signatures.

Kevin Greenberg, an elections lawyer, is cautiously curious about Driscoll’s approach. He thinks the system could catch signatures from voters who signed more than one petition for a single office, like mayor, when they are only allowed to back one candidate.

“There are things that people who know how to do this do that this won’t replace,” Greenberg said. “But I’d love to see where it evolves to.”

Adam Bonin, another election lawyer, also sees potential as a tool for determining a candidate’s rate of success or failure in turning in legitimate petitions. But that won’t take humans out of the equation.

“You’re still going to want to do a careful line-by-line review before you go before a judge,” Bonin said.

Clout provides often irreverent news and analysis about people, power, and politics.