He
knew that as a third-party candidate he had little chance of winning,
and he told The Inquirer that in 1977, "I found it incredible that there
were 10,000 people willing to vote for me."
He said he refrained
from attacking other candidates: "I don't want to be negative, I want to
transcend that to talk about the Consumer Party and the issues. My job
is to say that real crime isn't in the criminal sphere, but the economic
sphere."
"Arthur was extraordinarily idealistic and very
progressive," said former Gov. Ed Rendell, who won the elections for
district attorney in 1977 and 1981. "He was a fighter for what he
believed in, but he knew he didn't have much of a chance. He had a great
sense of humor. He wasn't pompous and didn't take himself too
seriously, like most politicians."
A native of Chevy Chase, Md., Mr. Liebersohn earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1973.
After
graduating from the University of Pennsylvania School of Law in 1976,
he joined the Consumer Education and Protective Association (CEPA) and
the Consumer Party, which were headed by Max Weiner, an advocate for
consumer rights.
Weiner needed a lawyer to file petitions to stop
sheriff's sales. Mr. Liebersohn didn't want to be a corporate lawyer,
his wife, Mady Cantor, said, and embraced CEPA's ideology. It gave him
direction, she said.
Mr. Liebersohn began to get referrals for legal work from CEPA and eventually became a specialist in bankruptcy law.
Since
1986, he had been a Chapter 7 trustee for bankruptcy cases in the
Eastern District of Pennsylvania. He was also a Chapter 11 trustee and a
Chapter 7 trustee in Delaware. Trustees are charged with recovering
assets and liquidating them for the repayment of creditors.
