Nutter's national debut

Mayor Nutter has a message for anyone still dogging him about why he endorsed Hillary Rodham Clinton over Barack Obama.

"There are no automatics in life that all black people are going to support a single black candidate in a race," Nutter said. "All black folks don't eat fried chicken or eat watermelon. When do we make some progress here?"

Nutter endorsed Clinton four months ago, citing her understanding of the tough issues facing America's cities. He has since discovered that almost nothing he has done as the new mayor has gotten as much national attention.

As Pennsylvania's April 22 primary nears, most everyone wants to know why a well-educated African American mayor with a reformist message and a "post-racial" vision would not endorse a well-educated African American presidential candidate with a reformist message and "post-racial" vision.

As ABC News, CBS's Face the Nation, and others have come calling - next Monday it will be The Colbert Report - the experience has left Nutter bristling a bit over what he sees as hypocrisy.

"I didn't see people running up to Ted Kennedy, saying, 'Are you getting any pressure from supporting Sen. Obama, any backlash?' No one is asking the white elected officials if they are getting pressure for supporting the black guy," he said in an interview last week.

He even had some pointed words for Obama, who recently suggested Nutter might have some "bruised feelings" given the Illinois senator's endorsement of U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah in last year's Democratic mayoral primary.

"I laughed," Nutter said, when he heard that explanation. "It's kind of silly to think I would make such an important decision and allow last year's primary election to come into it. . . . I think, respectfully, Sen. Obama and others should not speculate about it."

Nutter phoned back a day later and drew from Clinton's campaign rhetoric to criticize Obama again.

"I don't understand how Sen. Obama can say that when it's not true," he said, "just like I don't understand how he can say that he doesn't take money from big oil, when that's not true."

Still, Nutter said, if Clinton does not win the nomination, "then the next day I am going to be out there, trying to help Sen. Obama."

For the moment, his endorsement of Clinton leaves Nutter with few peers. "In terms of young black elected officials and young African Americans in general, he is an exception," said David Bositis, who researches black voting patterns at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington.

Nutter has distinguished himself in another way as well: by taking a hard-line stance on Obama's controversial pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Other black leaders and many in the black community have been sympathetic to Obama's decision to remain a congregant of the church where Wright preached, despite the pastor's fiery and, at times, divisive rhetoric on race relations, other ethnic groups, and patriotism.

Asked about the controversy, Nutter told an ABC World News reporter last week that he would have "absolutely" left Wright's church if it had been his.

"You can choose to sit and listen to whatever you want to listen to, but based on what I've read and heard, that is just not the kind of sermonizing I would appreciate," Nutter told The Inquirer.

He has since sought to depict the Wright matter as a distraction, saying it was "over and done with. I don't even talk about it anymore."

The mayor, still in his first 100 days of office, prefers to talk about why Clinton got his vote: "Whether on issues of subprime mortgages or public safety, she demonstrates every day she has the experience, the temperament, the judgment to be a great president, and I'm very proud to support her."

A dozen interviews with Philadelphia voters last week suggested it was unlikely Nutter would face much backlash for his choice, particularly from two of his main constituencies: political progressives and African Americans.

"Everybody has a right to choose who they want," said Debbie Roberts, an African American bill collector at Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania and an Obama supporter. "Some people are mad at him, but I'm not."

Kevin Marr, a 31-year-old white resident of Northeast Philadelphia, said, "It's refreshing that he's not just siding with an African American candidate because they are African American."

Almetta McClinton, 82, saw Nutter's decision as a political one in that he wanted to align himself with Gov. Rendell, a Clinton backer. Walking with her daughter through the City Hall courtyard last week, she said it was a no-brainer. "He was going to go with Rendell - you scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours."

That view is shared by some liberal political groups, as well. "Some people suspect he did it when it looked like Clinton was a slam dunk and perhaps it would help make him friends in Washington and Harrisburg," said Sam Durso of the activist group Philly for Change.

Whatever the case, he senses no sentiment that Nutter has abandoned the progressive community. "The honeymoon," he said, "is still continuing with Michael."