While many Democrats are stumbling around, trying to figure out who the 2007 mayoral candidate will be, other insider Democrats are sitting back and laughing.

Why? Because they believe the race is already decided. Despite his continual denials, there is powerful evidence that U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, also the chairman of Democratic City Committee, will run for City Hall. In fact, they say that Brady has planned this all along and is just keeping quiet until the right time.

Will Sam Katz be on the ballot opposite Brady? No Republican names have surfaced and some are wondering if Katz is masochistic enough to try again.

Katz will have major problems in the public sphere now. The Delaware Supreme Court upheld the Chancery Court's 2004 decision against him. Katz and his company, Community Sports Partners, were sued by his former business partners for fraudulently inducing them to invest in a skating-rink project. The partners, William Kronenberg, Frank Piliero and David Rosenberg sued Katz claiming he fraudulently misrepresented important information pertaining to the investment. They claimed Katz and principal employee Mark Robins wrote reports that they attributed to an independent third party and that Katz didn't tell them that Robins had extensive experience with the criminal justice system - unfortunately Robins was on the losing end.

The judge sided with the plaintiffs and Katz has to refund their entire investment of $2.1 million. Katz appealed and lost.

Is Democratic ward leader and judicial consultant Carol Campbell losing her grip on power?

When Democratic ward leaders convened a few weeks back to endorse a candidate for an upcoming Municipal Court vacancy, Campbell was a no-show. Attending ward leaders unanimously endorsed Nazario Jimenez, Jr. to fill the rest of Municipal Court Judge Frank Palumbo's term. Palumbo is vacating his seat because he won the Democratic primary for the race for Common Pleas Court and is practically guaranteed a win in November's general election. As part of a deal with Democrats, Palumbo won't run for retention to Municipal Court so his replacement can be chosen.

Jimenez ran for Municipal Court in 2003, but lost in the primary. He was appointed to the bench in 2004 by Gov. Ed Rendell to fill a vacancy but then lost in this year's primary. If he is to keep his job, he has to run in the general election. The endorsement means he will definitely be on the ballot, despite his primary loss.

There are only three vacancies on Municipal Court - winners of the Democratic primary were Brad Moss, Karen Simmons and David Shuter.

Campbell, as head of the African-American Ward Leaders and Secretary to Democratic City Committee, never supported Jimenez and pushed Tom Nocella, who was her lawyer in a ward leader dispute with Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell in front of Democratic City Committee. Some ward leaders were expecting her to show up to oppose the endorsement, but that never happened.

Campbell walks a fine line with her consulting gigs. In 2001, the Attorney General's office charged Campbell with not filing disclosures of the money she got from judicial candidates on her ward's campaign reports. She was fined and placed on probation.

Campbell takes big bucks from judicial candidates and does not always deliver. None of her candidates - John Braxton, who ran for City Controller, nor judicial candidates Joyce Eubanks and Sharon Williams Losier - made the grade.

Last week, the Hyatt Regency Hotel at Penn's Landing hosted a lavish party for its clients and friends. In a sometimes-turbulent hospitality industry, the Hyatt, which will be five years old this December, is doing very well, according to general manager John Kroll.

Building the hotel was an arduous project because residents of the Society Hill Towers battled the chain, developer Dan Keating and Penn's Landing Corp. because $10 million in federal Department of Housing and Urban Development money was used to complete the project. And they claimed the hotel would block their views of the Delaware River.

While the Hyatt has a fairly high room-use rate — Kroll said they get a lot of tourists — the hotel also does a brisk business from corporate meetings and black-tie affairs.

Harriet Lessy, spokeswoman for the Greater Philadelphia Hotel Association, said occupancy throughout the city is high but room rates have not increased since 1998.

Not all city hotels have flourished. Part of the Radisson-Warwick Hotel on Locust Street is going condo. Korman Suites on Rittenhouse Square went entirely condo years ago. The Adams Mark Hotel on City Line Avenue closed and, last April, the Rittenhouse Square Sheraton did the same.