Powerful Pa. Democrats on opposite sides

PHILADELPHIA -- Two Democratic rising stars find themselves on opposite sides in this state's pivotal presidential primary.

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter swept into office last fall as the first African-American mayoral candidate to win both the black and white vote.

In suburban Bucks County, freshman Rep. Patrick Murphy knocked out a Republican incumbent and became the first Iraq war veteran to serve in Congress.

Now, both men are putting their new political leverage to work in the April 22 presidential primary. Each faces a heavy lift.

In the state's largest city, where the question is less whether Sen. Barack Obama will win than by how much, Nutter supports Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Murphy, the freshman who won his district by 0.6%, is leading the Obama charge in the Philadelphia suburbs — and going up against most of the state's political establishment. That includes the popular governor, Ed Rendell; the state Democratic chairman; and Rep. John Murtha, also a well-known opponent of the Iraq war, who endorsed Clinton last Tuesday.

"I'm a one-man shop," says Murphy, Obama's state chairman.

Party's rising stars not aligned

It would be easy to see each man supporting the other candidate, says Chris Borick, polling director at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa.

"If you were drawing this up strategically, you'd probably place it just the other way around," he says. "The African-American mayor of a city where the largest share of the state's African-American population lives — by all means you would see the lineup between Nutter and Barack Obama. And Murphy's district … is overwhelmingly white middle-class."

But Nutter's entry into politics was as a Bill Clinton delegate in 1992. He was on the city council when the Clinton administration increased police on city streets and started urban empowerment zones.

"I need to know that the next president of the United States understands cities," he says. "Both Clintons have demonstrated a real understanding of what urban America is about."