Our smiling chief executive is newly featured on several dozen brightly lit signs and TV monitors throughout the airport. "Mayor Michael Nutter welcomes you to Philadelphia," the signs say. "Love where you live, work or visit."

"Philadelphia" is in bigger letters than "Nutter." Only slightly bigger.

Who's behind this cult of personality?

Several of the mayor's close advisers recommended just four signs near baggage claim, where visitors used to be greeted with ominous warnings about unlicensed taxicabs.

But the airport's interim executive director, Charles Isdell, decided that the mayor's welcome should be expanded. Tenfold. To 40 additional spots.

Isdell is a holdover from the Street administration whose future is uncertain. Putting up pictures of your new boss all over the airport can't hurt your case, right?

The genesis of the signs was a March visit to Chicago by three officials - City Representative Melanie Johnson, press secretary Doug Oliver, and Danielle Cohn, vice president of marketing and communications for the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau. They were looking for ideas on how to better promote the city.

On their return to Philadelphia, heading down the escalator toward baggage claim, the trio was greeted by a sign that said, "DON'T BE A VICTIM," warning them about unlicensed cab drivers.

"It was not a great welcome to Philadelphia, and it struck all three of us at once: 'What are these signs doing here?'" Johnson recalled. "We spoke to the mayor and Rina Cutler [Nutter's deputy for transportation issues] about removing the signs, and they were down in 24 hours."

"We had to replace them with something," Johnson said.

Cohn said that she remembered seeing Mayor Richard Daley's name on lots of Chicago signage.

"My thinking was, with the new mayor, the whole idea of a new day, a new way, we could do some new welcome signs that featured a very bright-eyed mayor," Cohn said.

The first batch of airport signs was limited to four in the baggage-claim areas.

But Isdell found space for eight more signs next to flight-information displays, and fed Nutter's image into computer monitors at 32 additional locations.

"Now they're all over, in every terminal," Johnson said.

Airport spokeswoman Phyllis VanIstendal estimated the cost at $4,090.

Specter: Running it out

With the possible exception of Kentucky's Jim Bunning, the biggest Phillies fan in the U. S. Senate is Arlen Specter.

So we were barely surprised to see Specter take the Senate floor to praise manager Charlie Manuel for benching MVP Jimmy Rollins for failing to run out a routine fly ball.

"That took a lot of guts," Specter told his colleagues. "It is a great lesson, in my opinion, about the way baseball players ought to act and senators ought to act and everybody ought to act. We all ought to so-called 'run it out,' with that kind of intensity."

E-mails to Clout

Neither Tom Ridge nor Gov. Rendell pronounces the name of our commonwealth correctly. They do not pronounce the "L" in Pennsylvania. [They say Penn-sive-ain-ya instead of Penn-sil-vain-ya] . . . Gov. Rendell will be addressing all 50 governors [at next month's National Governors' Association meeting here]. It would be terrible to hear this [mispronunciation] in front of them. Can you inform him?

Thanks,

Nick Silvano

Nick: Chuck Ardo, Rendell's press secretary, told us, "I'm not sure your reader is correct, but I will certainly bring it to the governor's attention. Given that we are dealing with the budget, energy, health care, education and economic stimulus, we wouldn't want to leave a dangling 'L' out of the mix."

I noticed that in [last Friday's Clout] Barack Obama was referred to as the "Anointed One!"

Funny, because that is only another in a list of confirmations that he is: "The Antichrist."

- Kevin, Rittenhouse Square

Kevin: The end times will be good for newspaper sales.

I know. But most people won't realize the Antichrist is the Antichrist until it's too late.

Check out this site: www.barackobamaantichrist.blogspot.com

His Chicago ZIP code is 60606.

- Kevin, Rittenhouse Square

Kevin: Mark of the Beast! The Obama campaign's new Web site to counter absurd Internet attacks on him (FightTheSmears.com), does not address the issue of whether he is the Antichrist. A question for the next debate?

Anastasio: Moving, but how far?

This could end up being good news for Councilman Frank DiCicco: Rival Vern Anastasio has put his South Philly home up for sale.

Anastasio, president of the Bella Vista Civic Association who twice challenged DiCicco for his seat, denied a report that he's moving to New Jersey.

"We just listed [our house] and

haven't picked a new one out," Anastasio told us.

But asked to pledge that he wouldn't move to Jersey, he said: "I'm not gonna pledge anything. I'd love to stay as close as possible, but honestly don't know where we're going yet."

McCain: Gearing up in Pa.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain is beginning to staff up in Pennsylvania, a blue state that could turn red in November.

McCain's statewide director is Ted Christian, 39, a central Pa. native who earned his political spurs in New Jersey, handling field work in eight counties for Bob Dole in 1996, and getting big results in two counties for Christie Whitman in her close re-election battle in 1997.

Christian will open the McCain team's state headquarters in Harrisburg today.

Democratic candidate Barack Obama's campaign, meanwhile, is still interviewing candidates for its Keystone State effort.*

Staff writers Bob Warner, Dave Davies and Gar Joseph contributed to this report.