A look at Republican nominee Sam Katz in the final days of the mayoral campaign.

Just days before Tuesday's election, Katz is riding high in a race that should have been over last May. Polls show him nose-to-nose with Street, with nearly a quarter of voters still undecided.

Ed Rendell and local NAACP head J. Whyatt Mondesire have both said Katz would make a good mayor. "Democrats for Katz" buttons are popping up all over town. This week, Katz's momentum surged with endorsements from The Inquirer and Daily News.

That Katz is a contender against a veteran politician such as Street speaks volumes about the man behind the pinstripe suits and wire-rimmed glasses who made his living helping cities save money and sports-team owners finance new stadiums. Borrowing a page from Rendell, Katz has fashioned a low-key campaign style that showcases his engaging personality and accessibility - qualities not usually associated with his opponent.

"People get excited when they find out I can tap a keg with the best of them," Katz boasts, between campaign stops this week in the back seat of a Lincoln Navigator smelling strongly of McDonald's french fries.

"I danced the chicken dance at the German American Festival. I will bellyflop into pools. I think Philadelphians really like the idea of a touchable mayor."

If Katz - an erstwhile Democrat - comes off as an un-Republican, thank his Democratic advisers. For a year, they have positioned the 49-year-old businessman-turned-politician as an intellectual with heart, a guy with the brains and imagination to steer the city in directions that career bureaucrats never thought of. The pitch has worked, with the Katz campaign raising more than $6 million since 1998.

They've done it in spite of Katz's two previous failed bids for office and a public service resume that comprises just half of a six-year term on the Philadelphia Board of Education.

Through the long, dry summer, his advisers sent him to speak to community group after community group. Not about partisan politics, but about the problems that have driven 150,000 Philadelphians to the suburbs over the last decade - and his heartfelt belief that the city can recover and thrive.

It's a message well received.

"People tend to react to him by saying, 'Hey, that guy's like me,"' says Bob Barnett, Katz's campaign director. "He just connects with them personally."

It has been more than 50 years since Philadelphia elected a Republican mayor. Since then, the city has grown overwhelmingly Democratic, with voter registration showing 736,692 Democrats to 191,742 Republicans.

To win, Katz must lure scores of liberal but disillusioned Democrats to his side. At campaign stops across town, he proudly ticks off his own mini-rainbow coalition: Democrats John White Jr. and Happy Fernandez; members of the gay and lesbian community; Latinos and African Americans.

On the campaign trail this week, the Katz camp is relaxed, focused, and enjoying the spotlight. At three events Monday night, he has the stage to himself. Street has been invited to each but does not attend.

Between stops, Katz jokes with his wife, Connie, and their teenage son, Phil, along for the ride before homework beckons. Despite the grueling pace, the family swears that the race has been fun. Katz credits Rendell, whose charismatic reign has redefined the role that mayors play in Philadelphia.

"The mayor isn't making international policy. You're making decisions about places where people live," Katz explains. "People know Ed. He touched them. He spent time with them. That's what they expect."

On Monday, after snagging an endorsement from a group of Hispanic Democrats at Tierra Colombiana restaurant in Feltonville, Katz shuffled through the dining area, chatting up customers eating chicken and sipping Coronas. At a candidate forum in Overbrook Farms, he cradled the infant daughter of the local Democratic committeeman. In the back of the room, his Democrat wife decided she was voting Republican this time.

Beyond personality, though, there are the issues. Despite its girth, his plan to whittle the wage tax down to 4 percent is short on specifics. For all his "out of the box" ideas, Katz wants to move into City Hall before he commits to the details.

At a hospitality forum Monday night, he earned points with tavern owners, despite telling them he wouldn't promise to repeal the hated liquor-by-the-drink tax.

"Let me understand this: You're a Democrat, you're complaining about the tax my opponent put in place, but you're going to vote for him anyway?" Katz asked one agitated bar owner. The crowd erupted in laughter.

"One of the things I've learned in life is that if you make promises you can't keep, you end up paying," he said. "So I'm not making that promise. To stand here tonight and take that politically expedient route wouldn't be responsible. Then again, you wouldn't vote for me anyway."

Katz said rescuing the sinking school system - with or without vouchers as a life preserver - would be the most important and perhaps most time-consuming task in his administration. A fix he expects voters to notice right away is his policy for removing abandoned cars.

"Abandoned cars have become an icon for the lack of responsiveness of city government," he said. "So there's a car sitting somewhere. It's not like you've got to fix the whole social structure of the car. You've got to move it."

At Tuesday's WHYY debate, Katz blasted Street when the Democrat called Katz's plan to shrink the wage tax to 4 percent "impossible."

"Sometimes experience can be an advantage, sometimes it can be an albatross," Katz retorted. "You think the way you did it is the only way it could be done. You think as far as you went is . . . as far as it can be done."

At Tierra Colombiana restaurant, Nancy Santana talked about making a hard decision. She had listened to both candidates at voter forums before choosing Katz.

"You have to see who you're most comfortable with," explained Santana, a 37-year-old former welfare recipient who now runs her own cleaning business. "Katz seems more charismatic, more person-friendly. He makes you feel welcomed, like an uncle you haven't seen for years."

Street, by contrast, seems "standoffish" to Santana: "It's hard to get near him."

That sentiment has been echoed by several community groups across the city. Philadelphia Interfaith Action (PIA), a multiracial, multidenominational civic organization, has been aching for time with Street to discuss its issues - helping workers earn living wages, rebuilding neighborhoods, and removing blight.

This weekend, PIA will begin distributing 40,000 scorecards around the city, rating Katz and Street on the issues. Though the group does not endorse candidates, the cards weigh heavily in favor of Katz.

"We couldn't get a meeting with Street," explained the Rev. Kermit Newkirk, a lifelong Democrat and PIA leader from Harold O. Davis Baptist Church in Logan. "We've met with Katz six times. He's been engaging. He's listened to our concerns."

Just getting time with Katz swayed Jim Benson, too.

Last spring, Benson liked John White Jr. so much he hosted a kaffeeklatsch for the candidate. After the primary, Benson ran into Katz at a gas station on Lincoln Drive and "gave him hell" for campaigning negatively against White.

"He explained what he did, that he regretted doing it, but that it was necessary," recalled Benson, a sales supervisor and longtime political observer in North Philadelphia's 32d ward. "I was impressed by his honesty."

After White endorsed Katz, Benson signed on, too. Benson even appears in "Democrats for Katz" TV commercials.

"I'm not hung up on party. I view Katz as a Democrat, anyhow. He's moderate," Benson explains. "I think the city is poised for a big change in the year 2000. Sam Katz offers the hope, at least, that there will be some new ideas, new way of doing things."