Obligatory mayoral roundup

Knox

• The Inquirer notes that he's the focus of much activity, be it protest, campaign commercial, or other. Most notably, several current Council members yesterday held a news conference to blast his deal with Jannie Blackwell, saying that he had no right to meddle in Council affairs.

  "He [Knox] has no right to try to dictate to this council before he even gets elected," said Krajewski. "I'm very angry about it."
  
  Added Kenney: "I really do believe, and I think we all concur, that this is not a good sign for what a Knox administration would be like."

  Knox remains unrepentant about his choice to play politics among the insiders. [Also noted in this piece is a campaign pledge for public election financing being circulated and publicized, and a smattering of recent endorsement bits.] More on the angry Councilfolk here
  
  
• Separately, Jill Porter looks at the contrasting views of Knox as reformer versus dealmaker, noting many of the same frustrations with Blackwell that I noted previously (here).
  
  
• The mysterious 527's taking aim at Knox on the air have run into some challenges (in addition to the disparity of funds), with one of them having its ads refused by major networks. They say they're waiting for substantiation of some of the claims (surely not a standard they're holding all the mayoral ads to?), but it's hard not to think that threatening letters from Knox lawyers played a role too, especially since most of the claims in this ad have been discussed in the local papers already...

Nutter

• The Daily News joins the chorus of major media endorsements for Nutter, talking about both his general vision/energy and the substance of many of his ideas.

  More than any other candidate, Nutter grasps where this city is: As illuminated in the recent "Tale of Two Cities" report, Nutter recognizes both: the gains the city has made on the hipness scale, as well as the crushing poverty of so many of its citizens.

  Hard for me to disagree . . .

Others

• YPP and the CityPaper's next joint project will be looking at race in politics in Philadelphia, through the lens of this current mayoral race, but looking back and forward in time.
  
  
• The Next Mayor project alerts us to a broadcast mayoral forum on Sunday night that will engage the candidates in conversation and take questions from many organizations in the city who would like to see specific issues addressed. Should be fun to see Marty Moss-Cowain wrangle these guys!