By Jim O'Sullivan

One of them can reach back and talk about pounding countertops across from Ray Flynn at Regal Donuts, and he demands that his critics reckon with a record he calls unmatched by his peers.

One of them boasts of a fresh brand of leadership and a new way of slicing across old barriers.

And swirling around both are enough controversy and accusations and community tension to ratchet the rhetoric to an "almost unforgivable" pitch.

Charles Yancey and Ego Ezedi will vie for the most votes in next Tuesday's preliminary election, with Arthur L. Sutton finishing a shrill third, and then they will embark on the month-and-a-half sprint for electoral glory - for Yancey, a continuation of his 20-year hold on the District Four City Council seat, for Ezedi, a coronation of his struggle for reform.

And they're not alone.

Attending them are skirmishes and slaps around the perimeter. District Seven Councillor Chuck Turner, a Yancey ally, released Tuesday a series of statements and letters decrying "institutional racism" practiced by City Council President Michael Flaherty, an Ezedi backer, ignorance on the part of Boston Globe columnist Adrian Walker, and manipulation by Globe editors. Turner had backed off the charges last week, but reiterated them Tuesday. Flaherty's office retorted that Turner was "engaging in the divisive and racially charged politics of the past," and Flaherty called Yancey "a fraud" in a Walker column Monday.

Then there are the direct confronations. At the Dorchester Temple Baptist Church in Codman Square last Friday, Ezedi confronted Yancey on charges he said came from the incumbent's campaign.

"It's been said of me that I am the mayor's candidate, and yet I have not heard you say that, not one time. It has come from people in your organization," Ezedi told Yancey at the meeting, which organizers Rev. Bruce Wall and state Senator Dianne Wilkerson billed as a meeting to discuss how "our communities of color have been facing an unprecedented attack on our social and human fiber."

"What proof do you have that I am the white man's candidate?" Ezedi went on.

Yancey declined to answer, saying it was an issue that could be dealt with later.

But Tuesday, after a candidates forum at the Epiphany School, Yancey told the Reporter, "I've never said that. [Ezedi] is trying to run a campaign, trying to get support from whatever quarters he can."

Yancey called Ezedi's challenge of him on Friday "the height of insensitivity, and inexcusable, and almost unforgivable."

Of Flaherty, Yancey said, "The current Council president is the worst Council president that I have seen in 20 years, and I say that because he lacks good judgment, he makes ad hominem attacks on me."

But he backed away from echoing Turner's racism charge, calling Flaherty's use of power "discriminatory," but not racial. Yancey and Turner fault Flaherty for what Yancey termed "arbitrary and capricious use of Rule 19," a bylaw that allows the president to gavel silent any matter he deems is not germane to the business of the Council.

Ezedi, though, didn't back away from criticizing Yancey for employing racially-charged politics.

"You don't pull the race card every time you don't get your way," Ezedi said after the Tuesday forum. Asked to clarify, he replied, "It was certainly Charles about the redistricting" process that took place last year. Mattapan Square was halved, with some of what had been Yancey's district going to Councillor Rob Consalvo's; Yancey and Turner faulted Councillor Maureen Feeney, the redistricting chair, for being insensitive to community needs.

"When the fact of the matter was that you were asleep at the switch when Mattapan was broken up," Ezedi said.

Ezedi's campaign accuses Yancey of desperation tactics, of seeking to mobilize voters suspicious of external voices growing too loud in their district, and of being insensitive to the changing demographics of the district.

Yancey supporters fire back that it is Ezedi who is insensitive to the district's makeup, that his appeal is to the "condo-ized" professionals, rather than the working-class constituents.

Both campaigns insist that they're talking about the issues while their rivals are getting personal.

Yancey touts a $7 million loan order that's been earmarked for a public library in Mattapan. Ezedi says the loan order should already be a library, and that he could get it done.

Joyce Ferriabough, a political consultant who professes no rooting interest either way, said she expects Yancey to perform weakly in the preliminary, but to come on strong for the final. Still, she said outside tampering could play a role.

"The mayor has already put a price on Yancey's head by saying that it's no secret he wants Yancey to be gone," Ferriabough said. "That's pretty deep."

Councillor-at-Large Felix Arroyo, harried by a hotly-contested and racially-tinged reelection quest of his own, seemed to voice the views of many, noting Ezedi's talent and Yancey's achievements. Endorsing Council ally Yancey, Arroyo said, "I do believe that Mr. Ezedi is a very young and dynamic candidate, but I support Yancey."

Through the gunsmoke and pointed fingers, observers disagree over whether the district will be damaged by the attention and controversy, or will gain an increased political awareness and clout.

"I think that the campaign is, one, magnificent for the district and, two, that the district is going to benefit from this race and that, win or lose, people are going to be more aware of the issues," said one campaign worker. "I think this race has really brought out the issues that people have been concerned about for the last 20 years. People are aware of the issues and they're getting involved throughout all three campaigns, which is a good thing."

Said Ferriabough, "What will be the tale of the tape in the final analysis will be who wins the hearts and minds of the people, and who can get the vote out."

Tuesday night, stripped of all the vitriolic trappings and boiled down to the two opponents, grassroots politics was all that was left. After Yancey's stump speech before roughly 75 listeners in the second-floor library of the Epiphany School, Ezedi approached him and they shook hands, as they had done with hundreds of other potential voters throughout the day.

Walking away, Yancey said, as he does when they see each other, "I'm still waiting for your vote."