With Clarke out of mayor's race, who's up? who's down?

WITHIN AN HOUR of City Council President Darrell Clarke's announcement yesterday that he is not running for mayor, rampant speculation had already begun swirling about who benefits and who doesn't.

Clarke, who said he'll instead seek a fifth term in Council where his agenda is full, declined to comment on how his decision to stay out of the mayor's race could shake up the field.

Others were blunt in their assessments.

City Controller Alan Butkovitz, who announced in November that he definitely would not run, yesterday said that he might run after all.

"I have to take the pulse of the political community of Philadelphia. Principally, it's a question of whether the $3 million campaign budget can be put together in the short window between now and May. It's going to require talking to a lot of people," said Butkovitz, who added that he believes he'd get a large chunk of the labor-union vote that had been pledged to Clarke.

"I don't think you have to be a rocket scientist to figure out who benefits. Obviously, [state Sen.] Tony Williams," said longtime political observer Larry Ceisler.

"When you have - at this point - one major African-American candidate in an electorate that has an African-American plurality, then that makes Tony Williams a beneficiary. Does it make him a front-runner? No," Ceisler added.

Former District Attorney Lynne Abraham is still the front-runner based on name recognition, he said, and she could gain labor-union support now that Clarke is no longer a factor, Ceisler added.

"The obvious winner in this would be Tony Williams right now because anyone who has even been a casual observer of Philadelphia elections knows that race is a fault line," said longtime political consultant Ken Smukler.

"Williams' campaign is definitely in a better position than it was in 24 hours ago. Likewise, Lynne Abraham's campaign is in a more dire position," Smukler said.

A Daily News call to Abraham's campaign office seeking comment was not returned.

State Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams and another candidate, Ken Trujillo, a former City Solicitor, both issued statements praising Clarke's work on Council and saying they looked forward to working with him to solve the city's problems.

Others who have announced as candidates or are expected to do so include: Nelson Diaz, a former City Solicitor and former Common Pleas judge; Doug Oliver, former vice president of Marketing and Corporate Communications at Philadelphia Gas Works and former press secretary for Mayor Nutter; and Milton Street, a former state senator who ran for mayor in 2011.

Clarke, who was first elected to Council in 1999 and became its president in 2012, said that while he is "flattered" that so many people asked him to run, he has more work to do in Council.

"I have to do what I think is right for the citizens and for the Council. This being what I believe to be one of the most progressive and substantive Councils in the history of the city of Philadelphia, the question is, why would I not want to continue to work there?" Clarke said during an interview.

Clarke said that while he knows all of the mayoral candidates, he doesn't know enough about where they stand on the issues to endorse anyone.

"There needs to be some tough questions posed to these individuals," he said. "We're talking about the mayor of the city of Philadelphia. From my perspective, nobody has been asked the tough questions, yet."