DID NAACP President Kweisi Mfume encourage those who wanted him to be a mayoral candidate? Or did the public courtship come unsolicited, even unwelcomed?

Well, what came first -- the chicken or the egg?

Rumors that tied Mfume to a possible mayoral candidacy have been floating in the city for more than a year. But they always were vague, their sources unclear. Then, on Dec. 3, Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke announced that he would not seek a fourth term, and faces and names became attached to the call for Mfume to run. A short time later, Del. Howard "Pete" Rawlings and his band of Mfume supporters formed a Draft Mfume Committee.

It would have been hard to live in Baltimore during the last several months and not know what came next: an escalating draft campaign and periodic, noncommittal public statements from Mfume. It all culminated in a press conference Monday, when Mfume said he would not be a candidate.

But before he could do that, the chatter circulated about why Mfume was reluctant to enter the race. Members of the media, city leaders and every-day folks speculated. New theories were floated almost daily.

Some observers were convinced that Mfume's reluctance was about money. The gap between the mayor's $95,000 salary and Mfume's $220,000 NAACP salary might have been too big. Or was visibility the key concern? Mfume works on a national stage. Would he feel confined in City Hall? Perhaps he was daunted by the task of leading a city challenged by high crime, drugs, vacant housing and an eroding tax base.

For whatever reasons, Mfume often sounded uninterested in running the city. In December, and again during the past two weeks, he insisted he would focus on the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

But he was not consistent. He often talked and acted more like a candidate than the head of a major nonprofit organization. For example:

* In a December interview, he denied interest in the race but, without prompting, detailed a virtual campaign platform by talking about the city's needs.

* In March, after living in Baltimore County for years, he moved into a condominium in the city. The new address gave him plenty of time to satisfy a six-month residency requirement that legislators were pushing and then passed.

* Later in March, Mfume positioned himself in the media spotlight by attending meetings in Baltimore and Annapolis unrelated to civil rights -- meetings the press knew about because of anonymous tips from, in some cases, NAACP headquarters.

* Last month, during a speech at Baltimore City Community College, Mfume laid the groundwork for a mayoral announcement, telling some 300 students that he would run for mayor for the love of the city, not money.

In hindsight, Mfume and his political supporters have seemingly been partners in an elaborate, months-long dance. Sometimes he led, other times he followed, but he was always a willing partner clutching an overflowing dance card.

Then he sent the band home.

Amid the nearly incessant talk about the issue in recent months, Mfume's words and actions have often been obscured by other voices. What follows are some of Mfume's statements about his possible candidacy:

* In a Dec. 3 interview with The Sun: "I am flattered that anybody would express faith and confidence in me running for mayor, but I am not actively considering anything but the work that is before me with the NAACP. I won't consider anything until my work is taken care of. ... I don't rule anything out and I don't rule anything in. After 17 or 18 years in office, I don't do that. It's just a lesson you learn. ... People are seemingly accepting anew that politics is an option for me. Politics has always been an option -- but it's my option, not anyone else's."

* In a Dec. 5 press release from the NAACP: "I am both flattered and honored that so many people of different races and walks of life throughout the greater Baltimore area would express confidence in me running for mayor of Baltimore. However, I am not actively considering anything but the work before me with the NAACP.

"The work I am doing with so many others to help try and create a better America for all Americans is very important to me. That work requires the full-time attention of all of us involved in it. There is a lot more for me to do at the NAACP, and I owe it to the Association and our members to stay focused. I believe in completing jobs.

"Therefore, I am not now nor will I be a candidate for mayor in this year's election. To those who are candidates and to those soon to throw their hats in the ring, please understand the following, that the desire to lead must not be fed on ego and personal ambition. It must be founded on sincerity and one's real desire to help all people.

"Baltimore needs a cheerleader -- someone who is an economic visionary, someone energetic enough to lead the city, to put belief back into the community and hope in the hearts of residents. Failing to do that, the city that we love is at risk of falling into the second tier of American cities.

"The NAACP is committed to not allowing that to happen."

* During a press conference at NAACP national headquarters Dec. 5: "I am not now nor will I be a candidate for next year's election. It is not time for me to change course. It is not time for me to push on. ... It was never my intent to be thrown into the discussion. However, the press and attendant publicity that has gone into it in the last couple of days has fueled a lot of unnecessary distraction. It's not fair to my association.

"I really abhor a person who would use a process like this to fuel their ego. To me this is about a lot more than blood relations. It's about what's best for the city."

Asked if he had been close to deciding to enter the race, Mfume said, "'Close' is relative. We all have considered things like that. The idea of a draft movement is very flattering, honoring and very humbling. ... I do expect to be with the NAACP until they no longer want me or until I feel my work is done here. I'm not afraid of moving on."

* In a January letter to Rawlings about the bill to decrease the city's residency requirement for mayor from a year to six months so Mfume could move from Baltimore County to the city in time for the mayoral race:

"If that is in fact the intention of the proposed legislation, I would respectfully ask that you withdraw it."

* In a Jan. 30 interview with The Sun: "'No' really means no. I don't know how many ways I can say I'm not running. I hate to say 'never' because you never know what the future would hold.

"I suspect and always believed that one day I would eventually end up back in the Congress, but more specifically in the Senate. I would love to do that one day later in life, after one of the current senators steps down."

* In a March 4 interview with The Sun at a fund-raiser for City Council President Lawrence A. Bell III, who officially entered the mayoral race on Thursday, though he had much earlier expressed interest in running: "Lawrence is not a candidate. There's a long way to go before the filing deadline in July. I'm just here ... like everyone else."

* In an April 20 speech at Baltimore City Community College: "If I do get to the point where I do get into this race, it won't be because some big shot called me and said, 'This is what I want you to do.' It will be because of people like you, black and white, uptown, downtown, all across the city, saying that you care about values.

"I have always been taught to believe that public service is what you bring to an issue, how you address it, and that you ought not be afraid to give up anything to do something that you think might make a difference in the lives of people. ... My situation is that I am already doing something that I made a commitment to do and that I wanted to see through. ... [Baltimore] is very important to me because I got a grounding here, I became a man here, I found myself as an individual here, I raised my children here, and I hope one day to be buried here."

* In a May 4 address at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, accepting the Frederick Douglass Award after revelations that he voted in the city while living in the county: "I've made some mistakes in my life. I'm not a perfect person, and this is not a perfect world. I'm a man, not a messiah."

* At a May 13 NAACP quarterly board meeting in Miami: "If, when it's all said and done, I don't do anything else at the NAACP except to turn this organization over to young people, that will be enough. If we don't, we will be a great civil rights organization that lived and died in the 20th century. I'm not going to have that."

* At a press conference Monday at NAACP headquarters: "I have repeatedly, from the outset, said that I would not be a candidate because I believe that with all certainty that my work here with the NAACP and on the national level was in many respects a job uncompleted. ... There was a part of me that really got electrified at the concept. ... Yesterday [Sunday], for the first time in weeks, I awakened with absolute clarity about my future and about my work. I know my job is to finish the work that I have begun."

Erin Texeira covers civil rights issues and race relations for The Sun. City Hall reporter Ivan Penn contributed to this article.