Nutter touts a new poll that shows him surging

Does anybody really doubt that in politics, it's hard to dispute the power of TV?

Not Michael Nutter. In e-mails to supporters Friday, the mayoral candidate touted a new internal poll that shows him surging into the No. 2 spot in the five-way race. He attributes his ascendancy to the "I am not Mayor Street" message he began airing in late March.

That second-place ranking is Nutter's best showing to date - and he's hoping to lure more campaign donors with it.

Businessman Tom Knox, of course, remained top seed, with support from 27 percent of the 403 Democratic primary voters polled. Then came Nutter (18 percent), U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah (15 percent), U.S. Rep. Bob Brady (11 percent), and State Rep. Dwight Evans (6 percent). The rest, 23 percent, labeled themselves undecided.

A closer look at the poll shows twice as many people now say they know Nutter compared to last year - and those who know him seem to like him. He got single-digit negatives from black and white voters - a good thing - and the proportion of whites who are fans continues to climb.

The poll was Knox's strongest showing to date - 9 points ahead of any competitor. But it also was conducted April 9 and 10, too soon to show any impact from Fattah's first ads.

Of those surveyed in the poll, conducted by the Garin, Hart, Yang Research Group, 46 percent said they were white, and 45 percent said they were black. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.8 percent.

Today is the pre-primary deadline for voter registration in Philadelphia, and that has more significance than one might think.

It's put up or shut up day for anyone who might be pondering an intriguing, long-shot scenario much-discussed among city politicos: that a prominent Democrat might be planning to enter the mayor's race as an independent after the May 15 primary.

Such a candidacy would amount to a contingency plan by party insiders. It would give them another shot at stopping the self-proclaimed outsider, Tom Knox, should he win the primary. And he's leading in the polls.

But the two people most often mentioned as would-be independent candidates don't seem interested. They are former City Controller Jonathan A. Saidel and District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham, both of whom support U.S. Rep. Bob Brady. "I'm not changing my registration on Monday," Saidel said Friday. "I'm committed to voting for Bob Brady for mayor on primary day."

"A lot of people have been asking Lynne about it, and the answer is no," said Eleanor Dezzi, Abraham's chief political adviser. "She's said that if she'd wanted to run for mayor, she would have run as a Democrat."

Attention, Northeast Republicans: Bob Brady wants you!

He says so quite clearly in a full-page ad his campaign bought in last week's edition of the insider City Hall paper, the Philadelphia Public Record.

So what if he's the chairman of the city Democratic Party and for two decades plus has devoted his political life to anointing and furthering the careers of Democrats?

This is a mayor's race, and Brady needs votes, of any stripe. So he wants Northeast GOPers to get out there and change their party registration, which they would have to do by today to beat the deadline.

"Become a Democrat for one important day to make your vote count!" the ad says. "Play a part!!! Don't be shut out of the process!!!!"

But wait - what about the Republican candidate, Al Taubenberger? "I'm not concerned," he says. "Frankly, I don't think they'll get many to switch. And what I've heard is of those who have, they're voting for Tom Knox."