A reformer makes Dixon look good

Well how about that? Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, a reformer who won a 2007 upset in the wake of John Street, is making Sheila Dixon look good.

Nutter's getting some heat from the Philadelphia Daily News for using city money for travel expenses to Denver for Nutter's five-person entourage at the Democratic National Committee Convention. The cost to taxpayers is "estimated at less than $10,000."

The best part is that the Baltimore Mayor's office looks great in this article about mixing city money and personal excess. Dixon's guy, Sterling Clifford, even gets right in the third graf: "It's a political trip, it's not like a mayor's conference, it's a party conference," said. The city doesn't pay for those things."

Dixon will use campaign money to pay for the expenses, as will Boston Mayor Tom Menino and Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. But neither of their spokespersons got a shot in.

Score one for Dixon.