HARRISBURG -- Democrat John M. Morganelli, a scrappy, five-term district attorney from eastern Pennsylvania, is fighting hard to end an embarrassing string of goose eggs racked up by his party.

Since the state attorney general's job became an elected position in 1980, Democrats have won exactly zero times. All of the state's top law enforcement officers have been Republicans.

That includes the incumbent, Tom Corbett, 59, of Shaler, who's seeking a second term in the Nov. 4 election and doesn't want to become to first Republican to lose, especially since he may have his eyes on the governor's race in 2010.

He's running aggressively on a record of prosecuting drug dealers, shady contractors, child predators and officials linked to wrongdoing, including 12 people he's arrested so far in an illegal state General Assembly bonus scheme dubbed Bonusgate.

Mr. Morganelli is mounting a strong challenge, accusing Mr. Corbett of focusing merely on state House Democrats during his 18-month-old Bonusgate probe while "hypocritically" ignoring possible wrongdoing by GOP legislators, some of whom, Mr. Morganelli said, have contributed to Mr. Corbett's past campaigns. He maintains Mr. Corbett has a "conflict of interest" with the case due to receiving such campaign funds.

Sounding a lot like Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, Democrat Morganelli told a recent Harrisburg gathering, "It's time for a change" in the attorney general's office.

Since 1992, the 52-year-old challenger has been district attorney in Northampton County, located on Pennsylvania's border with New Jersey.

He points to his record, prosecuting numerous first-degree murder cases, broadening Megan's Law to list addresses of all sex offenders in the county (not just sexually violent predators) on a Web site, and "cracking down on illegal immigrants who use fraudulent identities and commit crimes ... ."

He vowed to continue the battle against illegal immigrants on a statewide scale, and to stop businesses and "foreign countries like China that bring cheap, dangerous products into U.S. markets that harm consumers."

Mr. Corbett says his experience makes him the best man for the job. Besides serving since 2004 as the elected attorney general, Mr. Corbett also was an appointed attorney general in 1995-96.

Mr. Corbett "isn't a career politician, he's a career prosecutor," said his campaign manager, Brian Nutt. "Morganelli is a career politician. He's run five times for district attorney, three times for attorney general and also for lieutenant governor, Supreme Court and Congress."

The third candidate in the race is Libertarian party hopeful Marakay Rogers, a lawyer from York who ran for governor in 2006. She opposes the death penalty, which she calls "racially motivated," and supports gun ownership, "allowing honest Pennsylvanians to have better access to their Second Amendment rights."

As with many incumbents, Mr. Corbett leads in campaign funds, having amassed $2.1 million as of Sept. 15, spent more than $300,000, and with nearly $1.8 million on hand. Mr. Morganelli had collected just over $1 million, with most of it unspent. Ms. Rogers' report said she hadn't collected or spent $250.

Republican strategist Charlie Gerow, of Quantum Communications in Harrisburg, thinks Mr. Corbett "is still the favorite, but the race is anything but a lay-up."

He said that "down ballot'' races, such as the row offices, "tend to run with the national trend, and it now appears that Barack Obama will do very well in Pennsylvania, which could pull in candidates like Morganelli."

As for the bonus scandal, Mr. Gerow called it "a double-edged sword" for Mr. Corbett.

"It clearly gives him a higher profile and an opportunity to be a tough prosecutor on political corruption, but it also gives Democrats a chance to say this is a partisan prosecution of only Democrats," Mr. Gerow said.

"Corbett is better known and better financed, so he has a huge advantage there," said Franklin & Marshall College pollster G. Terry Madonna. "But will the Democrats sweep the state? Is the Democratic turnout so high that Corbett gets swept out?''

A surge in voter registration now has Democrats leading Republicans by more than 1 million voters in Pennsylvania.

A big win on Nov. 4 could help Mr. Corbett's chances to become governor two years from now.

"He's been prominently mentioned as a likely Republican candidate for governor, and an impressive showing would boost his chances," Mr. Madonna said.

Because of the bonus scandal, Mr. Corbett hasn't had to go out of his way to seek publicity. In July, his office charged 12 present or former Democratic House members or staffers with allegedly getting taxpayer-paid bonuses for political campaign work done in 2006, when Democrats won control of the House for the first time since 1994.

Mr. Corbett maintains that he is also looking into potential wrongdoing by House and Senate Republicans and Senate Democrats, but there have been no arrests in those caucuses.

Mr. Morganelli claims that the bonus scandal is a political vendetta targeting only House Democrats, a charge Mr. Corbett has denied. Mr. Nutt said Mr. Corbett has prosecuted cases against Republican officials in Delaware and Lancaster counties, as well as former Rep. Jeff Habay, of Shaler.

Last week, Mr. Morganelli told reporters at the Capitol that Mr. Corbett should have named a "special independent prosecutor" to decide whether charges should be brought. "The attorney general made a huge mistake in deciding to investigate the matter himself," Mr. Morganelli said.

Mr. Nutt retorted that it's "totally unfounded'' to claim that the scandal is an unfair investigation. He said grand jury probes are complicated and time-consuming, involve many witnesses and cannot be hurried. Additional arrests are expected, but it isn't known when.

Mr. Morganelli also has lobbed verbal grenades at the incumbent on several other issues, including, he said, how Mr. Corbett has spent tax funds on radio ads in the Philadelphia area. He claimed Mr. Corbett "has spent and misused hundreds of thousands of tax dollars ... on political-style radio advertisements" in southeastern Pennsylvania.

The radio ads, which the Philadelphia Inquirer said cost $625,000, were part of a two-year, $10 million state grant aimed at getting illegal guns off the street. Mr. Morganelli asked state Auditor General Jack Wagner, a Democrat, to audit "Tom Corbett's misuse of tax dollars to promote himself in an election year."

Mr. Nutt replied, "Morganelli has his facts wrong." The program involved Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham, Philadelphia police and the attorney general.

"It was a cooperative effort to reduce gun violence by reducing straw purchasers," people without criminal records who buy guns to be used by criminals.

The program was intended "to educate people that we will come after those who make straw purchases," Mr. Nutt said, "to tell them they're doing some illegal, something punishable with jail time. If it stops one gun from getting into [a criminal's] hands, it's a good thing. Morganelli's criticism of the program is misguided."