Heard in the Hall

Tonight, dozens and dozens of them were stuck in the grass divider at Columbus Boulevard and also across the fences and walls not very far away. They were blue and red and green and yellow. They were square and rectangular, sort-of-large and extraordinary large.

CAMPAIGN SIGNS! FINALLY!

Yes, Election Day is three weeks away - and here at long last in this lackluster campaign season was indisputable evidence.

The occasion: The Democratic City Committee's pre-election day fundraiser, held at the cavernous Sheet Metal Workers Hall.

"There are too many people who think this election is done. It is not done!" shouted party chairman Bob Brady, squashed on the dais by the dozens of candidates - for judge, City Council, statewide jobs - that he had just called up to join him.

And then he announced the main attraction: "The next mayor of Philadelphia - Mayor. Michael. Nutter!"

And Nutter for the first time had before him an audience he never quite had before. "It's party time! It's party time! It's Democratic Party time!... Bob Brady is absolutely right. This election is not over," he continued, repeating that 22 - "22! 22!" - days remain.

But so much for the pomp and circumstance. On to two of the more memorable happenings of the night.

The first was the appearance of Tom Knox who Brady, in his good-natured way, made a point of inviting up to the dais. (Knox has said he is interested in running for governor or a U.S. Senate seat, and tonight he sought to affirm that. "I'm going to do something," he said.)

So along with Nutter, there on a shared stage stood three of the five candidates who ran in the May primary - Brady and Knox (the former archenemies) and Nutter.

Brady referred to it as something about "showing Democratic unity."

The second intriguing episode happened a short time after. As Nutter exited the stage and worked the crowd, he stopped at a certain table to take a photo.

It was with state Rep. Frank Oliver, the party treasurer, and Councilwoman Carol Campbell, the party secretary who last year denounced Nutter for "sticking a knife in my back."

Campbell's likely successor - she lost her seat in the primary - had a word for that picture. "It's an oxymoron," said Curtis Jones. "An oxymoron."