Here, Philadelphia's five most notable political stories of 2011. 1. The Mayoral Race That Wasn't The biggest Philadelphia political story of the year was the non-story of Mayor Nutter's re-election. Two years ago, remember, Nutter looked so vulnerable that a few actually thought he might be the first incumbent Philadelphia mayor to lose a re-election bid in the city's modern era. The city's seemingly endless budget crisis—and the service cuts and tax hikes those budget deficits led to—had sucked the air out of Nutter's first term in a hurry. His support was weak in the black community, and plenty of his allies were talking privately about how big a disappointment he'd turned out to be. But then the budget stabilized, Nutter patched up his relationships with some key players, and his critics lost their courage and decided to play it safe and not openly challenge an incumbent. You could say that Nutter skated because his would-be opponents and their backers were gutless (and you'd be partly right). But Nutter's pass was also due to some good behind-the-scenes maneuvering on the Mayor's part. He showed a deft political touch before the primary that had been lacking for too much of his first term. And so instead of a real campaign, we got the farce of Milton Street and Karen Brown.