Pittsburgh's mayoral race is a gift that city residents almost did not receive. Let's recap the history and celebrate what's happened.

After City Council President Luke Ravenstahl was elevated to mayor after the untimely death of Bob O'Connor last year, the county elections board declared that a mayoral election be held this year and not at the next regularly scheduled contest in 2009.

The race was on, only to be effectively ended after a few months when Councilman Bill Peduto pulled out of the Democratic primary. From the beginning, the Post-Gazette argued that voters needed a real election for mayor, not a coronation brought about by tragic chance. With no Republican in the primary at the time, we editorialized that as "far as Pittsburgh's most important office goes, democracy has been effectively suspended." Suspended but, thankfully, not cancelled.

Republicans awoke from their decades-long slumber and rallied behind a write-in campaign for Mark DeSantis, who was placed on the fall ballot. Even then, a full-blooded race seemed doubtful. Mr. DeSantis, while professionally accomplished as the chief executive of a technology-business development firm, was no household name. As no Republican has been mayor for more than 70 years, conventional wisdom suggests Mr. Ravenstahl will be an easy winner.

Maybe it's time to forget conventional wisdom, because it also says this race is a ho-hummer. Tell that to the more than 400 people who packed an auditorium at the Senator John Heinz History Center on Tuesday night. In a public forum sponsored by the Post-Gazette, Mr. Ravenstahl and Mr. DeSantis were joined by Libertarian Tony Oliva and Socialist Workers Party candidate Ryan Scott. The standing-room-only crowd, some of them enthusiastic partisans, got a good tutorial in the candidates' differences.

More forums and debates will follow, including one organized by PUMP at Duquesne University's A.J. Palumbo Center tonight at 6:30. Whoever is the next mayor of Pittsburgh won't be there without having defended his positions -- and that is what was important all along.

Who won on Tuesday night? Why, the people of Pittsburgh. The turnout and enthusiasm established this as a real race, where perhaps anything can happen.