Hopefuls

Camden Mayor Randy Primas will have two challengers and 10 candidates will vie for three City Council seats in Camden's May 9 nonpartisan election, according to petitions filed with the city clerk yesterday. All but one of the hopefuls had announced their candidacies before yesterday's filing deadline. Steven DiMedio of the 1100 block of Lakeshore Drive was the only surprise, filing a petition for City Council under the slogan "Youth Programs, Education, Housing, No Drugs. " He could not be reached for comment yesterday.

ON TWO RECENT nights, I watched the Phillies through a blurry, shaking picture because Comcast is worried more about raising its rates than supplying a quality product. But when you are a monopoly in a city as corrupt as Philadelphia, you have that luxury. I envy the areas surrounding Philly that have the option of Verizon Video. Here's a question for our new honest mayoral hopefuls: Why not Philly? Let's open the city to a little competition for our business. Maybe then we'll see our cable mortgages come down.

New Jersey Democratic Chairman Tom Byrne has quite a sense of humor - even if he doesn't admit it. Mr. Byrne - with the unwitting support of some party faithful - supposedly tried to organize a closed Democratic primary. That's where the bosses go behind closed doors, pick a candidate, give him or her prime space on the ballot, and heap what little money they have on his or her candidacy. It's a mystery to us how anyone suspected that Mr. Byrne could pull it off. It hasn't worked to produce a governor since his father did it in 1973.

Sue Curci looked tired. She had been running routes and catching footballs, and she needed a little water break. Also, she had to fix her makeup. The 22-year-old was one of approximately 80 women who showed up the other day to try out for the Philadelphia Passion, the area's new Lingerie Football League team. This probably won't surprise anyone, but I've covered the LFL before. When I was in Dallas, I interviewed a few of the hopefuls when the league first got going. That's why I know the women involved are real competitors and surprisingly good athletes.

With an eye toward curbing the Democrats' dominance of City Council, Republican Party officials have chosen a longtime Democrat, a black woman and a Puerto Rican woman to complete their at-large ticket for this year's election. The three new candidates, assuming they win the May primary, will run with Council incumbents W. Thacher Longstreth and Joan Specter in an attempt to cut into the 13-to-4 Democratic majority. The newcomers are Joseph M. Egan, Diana L. Roca and Dolores Weaver, filling out a geographically and ethnically diverse ticket that includes three women, including a black and a Hispanic.

From the peanut gallery, it's cheap fun to call the presidential candidates "dwarfs. " Self-styled experts have stuck that warning label on all six Democrats now in the race and have sniffed at the stature of GOP hopefuls other than Vice President George Bush and Sen. Robert Dole (R., Kan.). No one seems to have checked whether real dwarfs feel insulted at being associated with these politicians. As for the dwarf crack as intended, a knock on what's inside the candidates, these snide lines from the sidelines just aren't true.

Lanky Michael Krajack shuffled his way through a tap dance as Duke Ellington's "Take the A Train" played in the background. Sometimes the Shippensburg University student missed a step or a hand movement, but he never forgot to smile. Enthusiasm - and height - not choreographic prowess, are the essentials when you have a chance to play Big Bird at Sesame Place amusement park in Langhorne. Krajack, 19, of Yardley, joined about 100 other hopefuls yesterday at the Walnut Street Theater as the amusement park held auditions for 45 dancing, acting and musician slots for the season, which begins May 6 and runs through Oct. 8. "We're looking for a lot of personality and smiles," said Joe Peczi, director of entertainment for the Busch Entertainment Corp.

Mark Leder must have been one of the most annoying kids at summer camp. While the other children were busy making macaroni necklaces, little Mark was memorizing the camp roster. He knew every name and every home town of every kid in the camp, helping to gain him what he called "a reputation for being a vast repository of otherwise useless knowledge. " Yesterday, Leder, lanky 47-year-old personal injury lawyer from Manchester, Conn., was trying to parlay some of that stored-up minutiae into a spot on Jeopardy!

It was billed as the start of his reelection campaign in next year's controller's race. But if Jonathan Saidel didn't come right out and say: "I'm running for mayor in '99," his announcement yesterday had all the trimmings of future aspirations: A $1,000-a-plate lunch with roast beef. Big names. (District Attorney Lynne Abraham and Mayor Rendell were there.) And big money. (Len Barrack and Alan Kessler, top fund-raisers for the mayor and President Clinton, along with lawyer Martin Weinberg, considered the kingmaker of mayoral hopefuls.

In three high-profile appearances here, New Jersey's Gov. Whitman yesterday touted her plan to move up her state's presidential primary from June to March in 2000 and vowed to fight for her brand of moderate Republican politics. Whitman, often mentioned during the runup to the 1996 elections as a potential vice presidential candidate, said that her desire to move the primary had nothing to do with her own ambitions. She said she had no interest in running for national office and expected to serve out her term, which ends in January 2002.