Faced with a tightening mayoral race, Democratic candidate John F. Street spent a considerable amount of time last night attacking Republican Sam Katz and defending himself before an overwhelmingly Democratic, African American audience in Germantown.

Street painted a dire picture for the 40 people at a candidates forum sponsored by two African American groups, the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity and the Philadelphia Links. He warned that a loss of the mayor's office to the Republicans this year could set the Democrats up to lose Pennsylvania and the presidency in the 2000 election.

"This shouldn't be a difficult choice for us," Street said.

That Street, who should have had the crowd's votes in his pocket, had to spend much of his 45-minute talk attacking Katz and defending himself, though, indicates how difficult some of the problems affecting his campaign have become.

Street told the group Katz "has bought into all of the Republican cut-tax party."

"Sam Katz isn't a bad person," Street said, "but he just doesn't have the set of experiences that you would have, or I would have, or anybody would have who's been around here for a while."

The Democratic candidate also sought to defuse the aloofness issue - the perception by some people in the African American and other communities that he is remote and standoffish.

"This isn't about me personally," Street told the crowd. "It really isn't about me personally."

Street also said that "in this business, you just can't please everybody."

"I think people are going to have to be mature about all this. They really are," he said.

Street also said that only two prominent Democrats, former PHA head John White Jr. and former City Council member Happy Fernandez, both opponents of his in the primary election, had come out for Katz.

He said that "every single Democratic ward leader in this city - black, white, green and blue - are going to be for me on Election Day."

Other Democratic candidates also sought to ignite party loyalty for Street.

"We are recommending you should pull the big D [lever]," said Jimmie Moore, a Democrat running for municipal court. "This is our town. This is our town."

Another Democratic judicial candidate, Karen Shreeves, who is running for Common Pleas Court, told the crowd that if the Democrats lose Philadelphia, "we're going to lose a lot of services."

"This Street issue, it's not about personality," Shreeves said. "It's not about whether he spoke to someone or didn't speak to someone."

Shreeves also said there were many "Democratic people that are in jobs now that won't have them if we go to the flip side" and vote for Republicans.

Katz, who addressed the forum before Street arrived, said he hoped the the audience would "put aside both issues of race and party affiliation" and support him.

Katz said he intends as mayor to be a "bridge builder" and to run an open and inclusive administration.

That line did not persuade one black member of the audience, who told Katz that "for an African American to vote for a Republican is like a chicken voting for Col. Sanders."

The man said the election "is going to come down to race, even if you don't feel it's going to come down to race."

The Republican label proved to be one that all the candidates preferred to play down before the democratic crowd.

Bert Lancaster, an aide to Councilman Frank Rizzo Jr. who is running as the GOP candidate in the Eighth District, told the audience that "I am a Republican, but I don't even count myself as a Republican."

Lancaster said that "I've probably been a closet Democrat for years."

On other issues, Street said that there may be a major fight in Harrisburg next year to get money for the school district. He said that as things now stood, he was unwilling to gut school services to obtain a "balanced budget" to please Gov. Ridge and the legislature. Because of the impasse, Street said, the schools may not open next fall unless Harrisburg comes up with more money.

"We are going to be in a dogfight because it's going to run out of money," said Street. Katz, who favors school vouchers, has suggested trading city support for vouchers, a cause Ridge strongly supports, in exchange for more school funding from the governor and legislature.

Street, who opposes vouchers, said he had "no intention of accepting a couple of crumbs off the table of the General Assembly in return for vouchers."