Wednesday I: All the campaign finance activism you can stomach

Well, I get a snow day from work and the local scene breaks wide open. (Actually, I heard rumors of this at my Ward dinner last night, but still..) It appears we have several components here:

• A heap of City Council challengers came together for a joint protest of Kenney's bill to Knox-ify campaign contribution limits. More here (which opens "If there is such a thing as a reform movement in Philadelphia politics, it showed up yesterday on the 4th floor of City Hall...") Kudos to Rev. Jesse Brown for sparking this remarkable showing.
  
  
• Many candidates also put out statements, including a heap at YPP:
  
  
  
  • Damon Roberts
    
  • Dwight Evans
    
  • Matt McClure
    
  
  
• Kenney, no doubt worried for his own seat as well as those of others he might bring along into the wind of public outrage, pulled his bills yesterday evening, catching most folks by surprise. He may reintroduce the topic after the primary.
  
  
• In the light of morning, many celebrate this as a victory, and/or look ahead to what's next:
  
  
  
  • Dan on What just happened here
    
    
  • Marc Stier: This year, politics in Philadelphia is going to be very different
    
    
  • Irv Ackelsberg: Now let's get behind real campaign finance reform (I particularly like the 2nd of his concrete suggestions.)
    
    
  • Jim Kenney defends his motives in a DN opinion piece: Giving everybody a fair shot
  
  
• In a similar but different vein, the Inquirer offers a look at how New York handled the millionare candidate question. (Take-home answer: it's along the lines that Kenney proposed, but with a public financing carrot for spending limits, and there's still not much you can do to rein in somebody spending their own money.)