To get there, he first must hold on to his current job. Republican challenger Al Schmidt, a self-described "square and dull" former federal auditor, aims to take it at the polls tomorrow.

The odds are against Schmidt, a newcomer lacking the name recognition, powerful union allies, or party machinery that Butkovitz enjoys.

But the two are also fighting for their political futures.

For Butkovitz, "a really dramatic win, even with a low turnout, would probably say something about his chances to reach higher office," said Zack Stalberg, president of the Committee of Seventy, a civic watchdog group.

"By the same token, if Schmidt wants to have a career in elective politics, it wouldn't be good if he gets creamed," Stalberg said.

Butkovitz, 57, says he understands the city and how to use his office to fix its problems - with audits of school finances, crumbling police facilities, and fatally slow emergency-response times.

Butkovitz says he knows when to punch public officials with public criticism and when to embrace them.

"You have to be strong enough to operate in the political jungle of Philadelphia," Butkovitz said.

Schmidt, 38, says Butkovitz, as a Democratic ward leader, won't take on sacred political institutions. That, Schmidt says, makes Butkovitz the custodian of the status quo in a city with a sky-high tax burden and looming debt.

"We don't have a city government that, at present, functions nearly as efficiently and effectively as it ought to," Schmidt said during a debate last week hosted by the League of Women Voters, Clear Channel Radio, the Committee of Seventy, and the University of Pennsylvania's Fels Institute of Government.

Schmidt says he would audit city departments yearly, as required by the charter. Butkovitz has moved the office to performance-based analyses that look deeper into the effectiveness of a department. That policy has put the office behind on the annual audits Schmidt calls for, with Butkovitz yet to produce an audit from 2008.

To Schmidt's supporters, he is a bright star who can invigorate a party outregistered 7-1 by Democrats, with a resume from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the nonpartisan auditing arm of Congress. "They can't beat the intellect. They can't beat the bipartisanship," Republican ward leader Sean Reilly said at a fund-raiser.

Butkovitz describes Schmidt as a carpetbagging, right-wing operative without a plan for the office. One of Butkovitz's favorite accusations is that Schmidt is a loyal Republican, naming a $2,000 contribution to George W. Bush in 2003 among Schmidt's sins.

A primary fight

Voters showed some taste for change in the primary, when Butkovitz's two opponents split nearly 60 percent of the vote. Butkovitz won with more than 40 percent.

Schmidt attributes the tough primary to Butkovitz's ties to the Democratic machine.

He notes that among those working for Butkovitz are six employees paid for by the Philadelphia School District, a setup that allows them to engage in politics off the job, which civil-service employees are prohibited from doing. A similar arrangement of school-district funding for nearly 80 workers at the Board of Revision of Taxes has come under fire from Mayor Nutter, and they would be absorbed into the civil service under a Nutter proposal.

During the debate, Butkovitz called criticism of his patronage workers a "red herring."

"The problems for the man on the street in Philadelphia are not patronage-related," Butkovitz said.