He won - but it cost him

While mayoral candidate Tom Knox couldn't buy his way into public office, at least one Philadelphia candidate apparently did - and he's personally torn about it.

Michael Erdos, a prosecutor in the district attorney's office for the past 10 years, spent about $550,000 in his barely successful campaign to win a Democratic nomination for Common Pleas Court. The figure is thought to be an all-time record for the amount spent to win a local judicial nomination.

All but $17,000 of the money came from Erdos' savings, his parents in York, and his sister in Massachusetts, according to campaign-finance reports. His father is a retired jazz-record producer.

Erdos spent about $260,000 on advertising and other appeals to voters, including cable-TV spots, billboards, newspaper and radio ads, direct mail, leaflets and phone calls.

On top of that, Erdos distributed $55,000 to Democratic ward organizations, $49,000 to get on the sample ballots of other candidates and $77,000 for political consultants, including Peter Truman, a former ward leader ($15,000), state Rep. Jewell Williams ($10,000), Northeast Philadelphia Ward Leader John Sabatina ($30,000) and ex-City Commissioner Maurice Floyd ($10,000).

By all appearances, Erdos, 42, is highly qualified. In the D.A.'s office, he led a team seizing property from drug dealers and closing drug houses. He prosecuted cases involving identity theft and other economic crimes, and handled hundreds of trials.

His academic background includes degrees from Oxford University and Yale Law School. He was first in his class at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa., co-captain of his college basketball team and a semipro player in England while he studied at Oxford.

But a month after the May 15 primary, in which he finished fourth among 19 candidates seeking four Democratic judicial nominations, Erdos says he doesn't feel the satisfaction he expected.

"I don't feel that I bought the election or bought any votes," Erdos said in a phone interview yesterday. "But there's a sense of unease that I was able to get my message out and a feeling that other candidates, without as much money, could not."

" . . . I didn't plan on spending this much, I just felt I had to do what I could, to reach out to voters and deal with the system."

The other three judicial candidates who won Democratic nominations also relied on themselves and their families for most of their campaign money.

Alice Beck Dubow reported $303,243 in campaign expenses, Ellen Green-Ceisler spent $199,150 and Linda Carpenter, who had the luck to draw the top ballot position, spent about $130,000, according to their campaign-finance reports.

Candidate Beverly Muldrow, who ran fifth, 3,078 votes behind Erdos, reported $158,053 in campaign expenses, more than $150,000 of it her own money.

"It's one of the problems of electing judges," said Lynn A. Marks, executive director of Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts. "In order to get known they need to get their name out there, and the only way to get their name out there is to have money, either their own or to raise it from lawyers who may then appear before them."

Marks' organization favors a merit-selection system that would have judges appointed instead of elected.

Base pay for Common Pleas judges in Philadelphia is $152,778 a year, with occasional cost-of-living adjustments.

"The pay is fine, but you don't do it for the money, for glory or fame, because there's little of that," Erdos said. "You do it because you want to roll up your sleeves and make our justice system better." *

Staff writer Dave Davies contributed to this report.