Speaking of the tension between fringe issues and big issues, I have steadfastly avoided writing about the election.

No, not that election (the one over a year away); I'm talking about the Philadelphia Mayoral election -- which effectively takes place next week, because the winner of the Democratic primary election will be the next Mayor:

Five Democrats will fight it out in the May 15 primary, including a wealthy political newcomer. But polls show that the race has narrowed to two candidates -- a white businessman who once served as deputy mayor and a black city councilman who is making a late surge.

The winner of the Democratic primary is almost certain to be the next mayor. Philadelphia hasn't elected a Republican mayor in more than 50 years.

The problem with the race is that it's tough for me to analyze. I don't like any of the candidates, although because I live outside the city I don't have to worry about having to choose one. The corruption of the current administration of Mayor Street is notorious and I've posted about it over the years. What especially rankled me was than the way he managed to spin a completely legitimate FBI corruption investigation into an election victory. (The voters were foolish enough to believe his asinine claim that the investigation was Bush being out to get him in the same way "the Republicans" were out to get Martin Luther King. Jr.)

So perhaps I am too cynical, but it just strikes me as unreasonable to expect that Philadelphians will get anything resembling good government. Of course, I suppose it might happen by accident. Ed Rendell (now PA governor) was one of the best mayors Philadelphia ever had. But I don't see anyone of his stature running in the primary.

For months the leader of the pack was local businessman Tom Knox, but now that the Inquirer has endorsed Michael Nutter, Knox is slipping while Nutter is rising. However, Congressman Chaka Fattah, while unable to make much headway, attacked Nutter in a manner some analysts found particularly unsettling -- by going out of his way to invoke the "not black enough" meme:

Chaka Fattah accused Michael Nutter of having to "remind himself that he's an African American," drawing gasps from the audience at the National Constitution Center.

"He said it," Fattah said. He and the other candidates had been piling on Nutter's proposal to allow police to stop and frisk people suspected of carrying illegal guns in high-crime areas; they argued that would lead to racial profiling and police abuses.

"As a person who's been black for 49 years, I think I know a little bit about racial profiling," Nutter said, defending his proposal. Then Fattah pounced.

If on its surface the exchange was about policing, the subtext was deeper.

Nutter has surged to the front of the five-way Democratic primary field, with polls showing stronger support for him among white voters than African Americans - an anomaly in a city that has tended for decades to vote along racial lines.

Fattah, a West Philadelphia congressman, was the favorite early in the campaign but has seen his lead in the polls slip away. He has based his campaign on an ambitious plan to attack poverty by leasing the airport, and is counting on capturing a large share of undecided African American voters.

The injection of race into the race drew criticism from the ADL, whose spokesman expressed disappointment that Fattah had violated the spirit of an agreement by all the candidates. Fattah says it was Nutter who brought up race, but considering what Nutter said, I think both Fattah and the ADL missed the fact that Nutter is either ignorant or demagogic on an important historical issue:

For his part, Fattah said it was Nutter who had brought race into the campaign with a string of references. The former city councilman has described himself an "outraged black man" in referring to the city's soaring homicide rate, and he has called those killings "black genocide."

"Congressman Fattah never mentions his race," said Rebecca Kirszner, a senior adviser to Fattah's campaign. "He called him [Nutter] out on the hypocrisy."

In the debate aftermath, Nutter campaign spokeswoman Melanie Johnson would say only that the candidate was "saddened" by Fattah's remark.

In February, all five candidates pledged to refrain from appeals based on race, in response to a letter from the Anti-Defamation League and others. Fattah's gibe at Nutter raises questions about that pledge, said Barry Morrison, head of the Philadelphia chapter of the ADL.

Morrison offered the view that Nutter's reference to his own race was relevant to a discussion of racial profiling - but "as to whether he's black enough, that's not appropriate," Morrison said. "This has been a healthy campaign that has stuck to the issues. Here in the 11th hour, it would be a shame to see the course of the [campaign] change because of desperate tactics."

"Genocide" does not refer to murder in the form of street crime. There must be a specific intent to destroy a population or group because of race, religion, nationality, etc. Now, there's no denying Philadelphia's appallingly high murder rate. But according to the official crime statistics provided by Chief of Detectives Joseph Fox, the vast majority of shooter and victims are criminals:

More than 80 percent of Philadelphia's cold-blooded killers have criminal records. Most of those records are lengthy, many for violent crimes.

The annual rate is about 400 such killings per year in a city that with a population of 1.4 million, over 45% of whom are black. By what possible criteria can these 400 criminal shootings be called "genocide"?

I think it cheapens the meaning of the word genocide, and I'm surprised the ADL didn't call Nutter on it.

Nor has the Inquirer called their endorsed candidate on it. Instead, another columnist in today's Inquirer praised him for saying it:

Nutter may look like a geek and appeal to white liberals, but so far he's the only black leader to call the uncontrolled killing in the city exactly what it is.

After an especially bloody April weekend that ended with 10 slayings, Nutter called the carnage "one of the worst human tragedies the city has ever seen. The bell should be tolling at 12 o'clock," he said, "for the black genocide that has been taking place in this city."

That's right. Black genocide. Because that's what it is.

I hate to sound nit-picky, but the misuse of important words in this way undermines their meaning, to the point where eventually they have no meaning at all. Might that be the whole idea? (If such words are rendered meaningless, then it would probably be completely legitimate to accuse Bush of committing "genocide" because of Hurricane Katrina, and sell T-shirts to go with the phrase.)

In today's column, not only is there no definition of genocide, but the claim is made that such misuse of language takes "courage":

No other black leader - not Mayor Street, not Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson, and, no, not even U.S. Rep. Fattah - has had the courage to speak the truth. It took a strong black man in the form of the wonkish Nutter to use such a call-to-action term to describe an epidemic that threatens to take out a generation of African American men.

Cynical observers might say he ratcheted up the rhetoric to attract some of the black vote, but it sounded to me like a black man who cares. Is that black enough?

Fattah's race-baiting antics sounded like a desperate move from a desperate man.

Fattah's next move should be to apologize for insulting the intelligence of black voters. We're better than this.

As I say, I don't know for whom I'd vote for in this election.

But I know for whom I wouldn't vote -- and that's Michael Nutter.

(His Inquirer endorsement notwithstanding.)