(4/29/2007) The pink cherry trees blossom late outside the long windows of Chapterhouse coffee house that opened around this time last spring. I'd admired them then. Now, only the blue-with-a-line-of-red ANASTASIO sign in a window across the street (elegant Italian simplicity, I'd call it) signals that we're in a different year.

But other things are starting to change outside those windows.

When last those cherry blossoms bloomed, in the warm spring months of 2006, the mayor's race that will define this city for the next two weeks, and likely for the four years that follow, was supposed to be easy to handicap. I'd heard then the murmur at the parties of local politicos, and at late night meetings with those pushing this Council candidate or that, a buzz that came to sound like Conventional Wisdom: there's going to be a lot of rumbling-and-grumbling by good government types (like me) about Michael Nutter and by old NW Alliance people about Dwight Evans, but…you know who the race is REALLY going to come down to? Brady and Fattah.

There was an easy logic to the Brady/Fattah equation that went beyond the simple racial dynamics that inspired it: both Bob Brady and Chaka Fattah are straight out of Central Casting for the role of Big City Mayor. Both exude a kind of raffish streetwise charm we love in urban executives, that touch of the tough guy many of us still find compelling in those whose prowess and smarts have been proven through accomplishments in the public arena. Theirs is an icon that draws smiles across faces, even if it likely makes women vying for such positions face uphill battles. Locals fondly recall Brady as the patriarchic gentle giant—a cuddly Papa Bear—getting (things) done in a manner that for others would seem like that of a bully (ponder for a moment the fate and resurrection of Jonathan Saidel), but getting away with it nonetheless. That's charm. And who can forget the months-long rock-star-like (almost diva-like) flirt and tease with the entire city that Fattah pitched in his run up to and during his famous Exploratory Committee, seducing his audience like a sweet-talking soul singer who was bound to have his way (tuxedo photos with Renee in the paper, the website, the music, was it really The Roots or did it just sound like Game Theory?), and the instantaneous rocket to the tops of the polls? That too is a special kind of charm, charisma.

These are the kind of men who can do ugly things in the process of seeking power and get away with it, often leaving crowds wanting more. Guys like Brady and Fattah usually mop the floor with Efficient Reformer types like Michael Nutter, let alone stiffs like Tom Knox. So what happened? How did we get here, a moment when the two Guys Who Look Like Mayors are behind and falling back?

Well, Tom Knox happened. Then two types of creeping reality—demographic and financial—pushed Philadelphia voters past the surface charms of our rakish pair of presumed frontrunners and toward the homelier guys preaching reform.

Knox's self-funded campaign was always the wild card Brady supporters wanted to discount, and the reason was obvious: demographics. While hopeful Brady-enthusiasts hawked the Party's Grand Poobah as a unity candidate (and he has, to be fair, a bridge-building background), clearer-eyed observers knew the base of the Brady machine was always going to be the White rowhouse voters of Northeast and South Philly. That base, untested since it proved not enough for Marty Weinberg in 1999, has visibly dwindled since then, so Brady could ill afford any kind of split with another White candidate with rowhouse appeal. Such appeal is exactly what Knox's bio-mercials bought early in the campaign, creating a White ceiling for Brady's poll numbers that Brady's (mostly) smart and well-funded campaign has never been able to crash through. Unless Knox topples utterly under the weight of swift-boat scrutiny (and I've suggested elsewhere that he probably won't), there are not enough White undecided voters to let Brady back into the game he was once supposed to own.

Fattah came much closer to owning that game than Brady did. His well-orchestrated entry into the mayoral primary was book-ended by polls showing him on the verge of running away with the race almost before it started. And as wise as Fattah's initial reading of the electoral climate seemed to me (at least compared to Brady's), his plan, once he got into the race, seemed even cannier. It's a tactic sports fans call North Carolina Basketball: Fattah tried to run out the clock. Out in front, he called on his unusually large Policy staff to issue long detailed proposal after long detailed proposal, always garnering headlines as other candidates' proposals could not (he was the frontrunner after all) and because Fattah's proposals were in the headlines, Fattah's opponents felt obliged to respond. Nutter, the self-avowed Candidate of Substance, seemed most frustrated by this tactic (Brady was never going to issue a hell of lot policy proposals; simple personal solutions are part of his MO). So Fattah was in the lead, controlling debate, and looking virtuous too for issuing so many seemingly-detailed proposals. How could he lose?

Well, there's controlling debate in the earned media (newspapers and blogs mostly), and then there's controlling it in the rest of the media (read: TV). Financial reality was about to set in…because in media, money talks. Literally. Positive proposals to end poverty may seem nice (if a bit airy) the first time you read them (and, long as they were, it took awhile) but you had to READ them. And in a city that didn't feel very good about its government, a message with more teeth--frankly a bit more negative--was likely to strike a deeper resonance, especially if all you had to do was sit back and WATCH and LISTEN to it (over and over and over). Knox's "Take the For Sale Sign Off City Hall" commercials ate away at Fattah's lead early, probably dining mostly on presumed Brady voters. But Knox's simple (and relentlessly televised) anti-gun message was boldly aimed at African-American voters that Fattah and Evans assumed were theirs to fight over. If Knox had eaten up just Brady's presumed share of the electoral pie, Fattah might have maintained at least a portion of the double-digit lead he'd enjoyed. But the gourmand from Rittenhouse has helped himself to disgruntled voters of all colors. And for some reason, Fattah, despite his frontrunner status, failed to raise enough money to even keep himself on TV (I'm guessing Papa Bear had a paw in it). Today, financial reality is locking Fattah out of the media debate he once threatened to monopolize.

This weekend has produced the first inklings that the media debate may yet have a third act. After much gnashing of teeth and keyboards here and elsewhere, the much-hypothesized anti-Knox commercials have become part of the reality of this campaign. How effective will they be? That's hard to determine, especially since this race has already taken a few unanticipated turns already. I still think many Knox supporters will suppose these attacks are the last cries of a dying machine. They may just blame them on Brady supporters who want to maintain a kind of paid-for access that Knox's self-funded campaign threatens most. Still, they could certainly hurt Knox among Undecided voters.

Who are Undecideds likely to turn to? The candidate with the most momentum, says Conventional Wisdom.

Who is that, on this second-to-last day of April, just sixteen before the election?

Well. I've been a Nutter supporter since his announcement last June, so take this with a super-sized grain of salt, but with the Philadelphia Magazine endorsement, today's Inquirer endorsement, and a second poll showing him moving up as no one else is…I have to say Nutter is now positioned to start closing the deal with voters CW would never have given him a shot with a month ago, let alone a year. Nutter's played the Efficient Reformer, going to work early, raising money every day, scrupulously following campaign finance guidelines, never complaining about Knox's financial advantage the way the others have, shedding negative numbers as his opponents see theirs rise. His is a role that does not always compel. But, like reform itself, given the right situation—like when others battle and expose their ugly sides and weaknesses—it can work. One self-styled reformer took down the two frontrunners. Now that reformer is under attack. It could be that Knox withstands the onslaught, and carries his lead to the finish. But if Knox stumbles…given his message, his money, and his momentum, Nutter can win. (He's actually an attractive guy, once you get past the voice.)

Looking at the city out the window(sill, maybe humming a new Arcade Fire song, although the mood is all wrong), the reformers seem to be schooling the rakes. That doesn't usually happen.

So what shall we do, reform kids (of any age)? We dream of changing the city in ways Conventional Wisdom usually calls impossible. But this year, Conventional Wisdom has already been proven wrong once.

As Delmore Schwartz wrote: In dreams begin responsibilities.