Philadelphia Mayoral Candidates Square Off In Debate

By Diana Rocco

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Tuesday marks three weeks until the Philadelphia mayoral election, and tonight, the two front-runners faced off for a debate.

They spoke about everything from the recent papal visit to lowering taxes.

The two front-runners in Philadelphia's mayoral race squared off Monday night.  With time running out to Election Day, in an hour-long intense dialog they talked about everything from industry to lowering taxes and the controversial stop and frisk policy.

"Systematically stopping young people, generally people of color, for absolutely no reason of all as they're going through their business day, going to work, going to school, creates a wall between the police and our citizens and that has to stop," said Democrat Jim Kenney.

"I believe that we need to reform the way we do stop and frisk in the city so that people's constitutional rights are protected and that really comes with investing in our police force," said Republican Melissa Murray Bailey.

Democratic nominee and leader in the polls councilman Jim Kenney said his focus will be education, in the form of community schools and universal Pre-K.

"I do believe that the poverty issue is the number one driving issue in every neighborhood," he said.

While his challenger Republican challenger Melissa Murray Bailey says underfunded schools are not an option.

"Before we fund anything else we need to fund the schools first, and then secondly we need to look at how are we getting better schools in the community and that goes to making sure kids can read by third grade," she said.

Both candidates talked about affordable housing and how they would handle the upcoming Democratic National Convention, given the lessons of the recent papal visit.

"There are things I would have done differently which is reducing the traffic box and encouraging more people to be out and about," said Murray Bailey. "So many people left the city which left businesses in dire straights."

"I don't understand the controversy it was a wonderful weekend, it was a transformative weekend, everyone was safe," said Kenney.

Murray Bailey says she realizes she's got an uphill battle as the Republican candidate in a largely Democratic city, but with just three weeks until Election Day, both will be pounding the pavement talking to as many voters as possible to get out their message.