Los Angeles Private Investigators

Eight days out from the Nov. 3 acclamation that will produce a new Philadelphia commune advocate for the aboriginal time in 19 years, candidates Seth Williams and Michael Untermeyer are not appointed to debate.More than angry with anniversary other, they are engaged in individual battles with the city’s political demography as their campaigns sweep from Manayunk to Mayfair, from Packer Park in centermost South Philadelphia to Parkwood Manor in the Far Northeast.

For Republican Untermeyer, party affiliation is a gargantuan challenge. Of 1,054,000 registered voters in Philadelphia, only 134,000 are Republicans.

His adventurous pitch to lure crossover voters at a contempo forum in Fairmount Park went like this: “A bent doesn’t ask your political affiliation before he robs you. The D.A.’s appointment should be apolitical.”

For Democrat Williams, the challenges are twofold: keeping his troops athirst admitting the complacency-inducing registration advantage, and getting out his vote on a day acclamation admiral adumbrate will allure turnout of about 15 percent.

“Some supporters accept told me, ‘Hey, you can just hang out and win. Why not booty your ancestors to Disneyland?’ ” he recounted recently. “But my opponent is not my Republican opponent. My opponent is apathy.”

Williams, 42, worked for 10 years as an abettor commune advocate beneath Lynne M. Abraham, the longtime top prosecutor he wants to succeed. He won the five-man Democratic primary in May with about 41 percent of the vote.

Untermeyer, 58, a lawyer, absolute acreage developer, and above prosecutor, said he switched from the Democratic Party this year to accept a clearer attempt at the office. He ran unopposed in the Republican primary.

Over the summer, the candidates mostly developed strategy, crafted position papers, and aloft money. Separately, they visited prosecutors’ offices in New York and San Francisco to examine programs that accept successfully dealt with weapons offenses and added crimes. They resumed campaigning in earnest after Labor Day.

On a typical day, Untermeyer began at a active alteration stop by acute the beef of early-morning commuters. A few hours later he canvassed rowhouses in Frankford. That night, he spoke to earlier voters at a Bustleton retirement community.

A addict of high-tech solutions to criminal-justice problems, Untermeyer contends that electronic monitoring can be revolutionary if used added effectively. It can abate prison bottleneck and save the burghal millions of dollars a year, he says, because nonviolent, low-risk offenders can be monitored for about a day instead of the almost -a-day amount of incarceration in a burghal jail.

Of almost 9,200 people in Philadelphia prisons on a given day, about 1,500 could be safely supervised on the outside, according to Untermeyer, who acquired that amount from conversations with burghal penal officials.

To illustrate the technology, he had himself outfitted with an ankle-mounted monitor, powered by a GPS and affiliated to his attack Web site. For 30 days he invited visitors to the armpit to clue him. In the aboriginal 10 days, he said, the armpit received 17,000 hits.

While agreeing that electronic monitoring can be valuable, Williams has derided Untermeyer’s affirmation as “a stunt” to grab media attention.

Because the city’s prisons accept fixed costs for such needs as maintenance and utilities, Williams says, the accumulation of which Untermeyer boasts would not be fully accomplished unless whole prisons were closed, and for the moment that is unrealistic.

The wonkish Untermeyer says his affirmation was designed to highlight the kind of “new ideas” he brings to the table.

“This apparatus is the approaching of public safety,” he said. “It’s what the motor vehicle was to the horse and buggy.”

Williams, who is endorsed by several unions, including the 14,600-member Fraternal Order of Police, has the advantage of able organizational support – potentially crucial in a low-turnout race.

On Friday his attack appear that today he will receive the endorsement of Sen. Arlen Specter, a above Philadelphia commune attorney.

Williams is broadly backed by African Americans, from rowhouse voters in the city’s poorest neighborhoods to J. Whyatt Mondesire, president of the Philadelphia affiliate of the NAACP.

If Williams wins, he will be Philadelphia’s aboriginal African American commune attorney.

“A lot of people accomplish a big accord of that,” Williams told about 100 African American women at a contempo candidates’ night sponsored by a black administration organization.

“That is important. But what’s added important to me is that Philadelphia leads the nation in homicides by handgun,” he said, with the cadence of a preacher. “That homicide is the leading killer of African American men beneath 35. And truth be told, we are killing ourselves.”

Using a poster-size map and laser pointer, he presented his plan for “community-based prosecution.” The idea, he said, is to assign abettor commune attorneys to police districts in admeasurement to area crime occurs, rather than base all of them at the commune attorney’s headquarters opposite City Hall.

On a typical day, Williams ricocheted among candidates’ forums, a meeting of the painters and allied trades union, and a Germantown nursing home area he sought support.

Much of his time is spent fund-raising at events area attendees about accept contributed 0 to ,000 a head.

In attack finance reports filed Friday, Williams reported 7,964 in contributions for mid-September through mid-October.

Untermeyer reported 3,924, including a 0,000 claimed loan he made to his attack Oct. 2. His report also listed a 0,000 amount for television advertising, which has been running on bounded cable for two weeks.

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Contact staff biographer Michael Matza at 215-854-2541 or mmatza@phillynews.com.Inquirer staff biographer Olivia Biagi contributed to this article.