PHILADELPHIA - The baseball season is just a few weeks old, the hockey playoffs are under way, but Chaka Fattah is already talking football.

"We have a quarterback controversy," said Fattah, a Democratic congressman from Philadelphia. "We're all on the same team. We're trying to decide which one of them will be the quarterback."

Fattah said he thinks that Sen. Barack Obama "is the one who will take us all the way to the Super Bowl." But, he adds, "it's a debatable issue."

In some circles in Philadelphia, the Democratic presidential race between Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton isn't much of a debate. Democrats are clashing over their support for the candidates.

Perhaps nowhere is that more evident than with the city's mayor, Michael Nutter.

Nutter, who is black, has endorsed Clinton. And he has drawn scorn from many influential black leaders in the city, where nearly 46 percent of the population is black, compared to the state average of less than 11 percent.

"I think the Black Student Union sees Nutter as a sellout," said Alicia Ogilvie, 22, a senior at Temple University. "He's not supporting someone who can relate to us as African-Americans."

The "disappointment and frustration" is fairly widespread, said the Rev. Ellis I. Washington, pastor of St. Matthew African Methodist Episcopal Church. Washington is president of the Black Clergy of Philadelphia and Vicinity, a group of 200 pastors that endorsed Obama.

Nutter said he believes the controversy is overblown.

"This is not a steel cage match. This is not some kind of smackdown," he said. "It's an election contest about the most important job in the United States of America."

Fattah also said he thinks the fuss is overblown.

"What is good and healthy about this is you have people of every background - African-Americans, Jewish, Irish - who, on both sides of this, men and women, nobody is making decisions based on race or gender," he said.

While Nutter's decision to support Clinton has drawn derision in some parts of the city, he was cheered Thursday night when he arrived in the white, working-class Mayfair neighborhood for a rally with Clinton, Gov. Ed Rendell and Chelsea Clinton outside the Mayfair Diner.

Tempers haven't flared over endorsements in Harrisburg, the state capital, where nearly 55 percent of the city's residents are black and Mayor Stephen R. Reed, who is white, is backing Clinton.