Bob O'Connor's campaign and anti-incumbent fervor swept through the endorsement vote by local Democratic Party insiders yesterday.

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The Allegheny County Democratic Committee snubbed City Council veterans William Peduto and Sala Udin in the run-up to the municipal primary May 17.

They also tapped county Councilman Wayne Fontana as their preferred choice to run for Auditor General Jack Wagner's former state Senate seat, and gave seven Common Pleas Court hopefuls, including city Controller Tom Flaherty, an early break from a large pack of judicial nominees.

In the biggest local race, O'Connor won his first party endorsement for mayor after losing the party's backing to incumbent Mayor Tom Murphy in 1997 and 2001.

This time around it was a lot different, as O'Connor crushed county Prothonotary Michael Lamb 500 to 253. The third major mayoral candidate, Peduto, did not ask for the party's nod.

O'Connor lost to Murphy by 1 percentage point in the 2001 mayoral primary and 8 points in 1997, without the party's endorsement either time. Getting it adds more momentum to a campaign already leading the others in fund raising and experience.

"My message is getting through. It's resonating," said O'Connor, whose campaign has thrown free meals for party officials in all 32 city wards the past few weeks.

Lamb issued a statement saying: "This is not a job that I have been seeking for over a decade and the fact that I received over 250 votes today indicates that people of the city of Pittsburgh are ready for a change."

But both Lamb and Peduto are now officially underdogs. The last person to win the mayoral primary without the party faithful's endorsement -- in a city where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans 5-to-1 -- was Sophie Masloff in 1989. She beat a five-candidate field that year, including the Democratic-endorsed Flaherty.

The primary for scads of local races is May 17. Yesterday's endorsement decisions -- registered by some 2,600 Democratic committee people countywide on their local races -- do not decide that primary, but do get the party machinery behind candidates as they try to round up votes the next 11 weeks.

It should especially help those taking on incumbents, such as Peduto and Udin, both of whom lost to candidates who are Democratic committee members.

Peduto is running for a second four-year term on council while also running in the mayoral primary. He lost the council endorsement in a 39 to 28 vote to Harlan Stone of Squirrel Hill, a 50-year-old Downtown attorney and 14th Ward committeeman.

Stone said he is running for office to promote public service in government. P.J. Lavelle, Peduto's campaign manager, saw darker motives in the committee's vote.

"This is the committee punishing Bill and Sala for making tough choices on [voting in favor of] the Act 47 plan. The committee is choosing the status quo and not supporting candidates who want to reform city government," he said.

Udin, who has been on council since 1995, lost the endorsement to Tonya Payne, 40, the party's 1st Ward chairperson and the president of the Uptown Community Action Group.

Udin only barely won the endorsement for his 2001 re-election bid and won the primary with 51 percent of the vote that year against two other candidates. He would not comment after the committee vote.

Flaherty's decision to leave his job as the party's chairman to run for Common Pleas Court judge paid off, as he won the committee's nod. The Shadyside man has been a lawyer for only six years and has not argued any cases in court, but maintains that his three decades in public life -- as a state representative, councilman and controller -- should prepare him for the bench.

The judicial endorsement winners for the seven seats available, in order of votes received, were: Ed Borkowski, Alan Hertzberg, Michael McCarthy, Wrenna Watson, Flaherty, Dwayne Woodruff and Beth Lazzara.

In the Senate race, Fontana had 210 votes, followed by 166 for state Rep. Nick Kotik, D-Robinson; 30 for Frank Gigliotti Jr. and 22 for Jeff Woodard.

The winner is expected to face in the May 17 special election state Rep. Michael Diven of Brookline, who just switched his party registration to Republican.

In the open District 2 City Council seat, which Hertzberg is leaving to run for judge, the nod went to Dan Deasy, a Public Works foreman from Westwood. He beat, in order, Mike Galovich, Bill Urbanic, Melissa Rossiter, Paul Mastandrea and Paul Renne.

Rich Nerone won the party's endorsement for the District 12 County Council seat. Under county regulations Fontana will have to leave that seat if he officially joins the run for Wagner's 42nd District Senate seat by the March 8 filing deadline.