Ronald White says Mayor Street saw 'race thing' as probe tactic..."

Three days after the City Hall scandal broke, FBI wiretaps captured a phone call in which Mayor Street agreed with Ronald A. White's advice that Street should use the "race thing" to galvanize his voters. "We don't have much choice but to go with it," Street told White on Oct. 10, 2003, less than a month before the mayor was reelected. At the time, White was a key fund-raiser for Street - and was the target of intense FBI scrutiny. On the phone, he told Street that the two men needed to discuss "how we're going to do this from a black thing." "We can do both," Street replied, without elaborating. A detailed account of the conversation, intercepted on White's cell phone, has been obtained by The Inquirer from three sources in the criminal justice system. The Inquirer sent a copy of the transcript to Street on Friday but he did respond to requests for comment on it. His spokesman said yesterday that the mayor "did not" use the racial tactic White had suggested during the 2003 conversation. The Street-White conversation was intercepted at a time when two forces were bearing down on the mayor and White, his longtime ally and fund-raiser: the wide-ranging corruption probe that had burst into view when an FBI bug was discovered in Street's office ceiling three days earlier, and the looming Nov. 4 election. Before the bug was found, polls had shown Street pulling slightly ahead in a close race.  [more]