By Jim O'Sullivan
Special to the Reporter

Tom Birmingham was, in the 2002 Democratic gubernatorial primary, the favored candidate of organized labor and much of the capital city's legislative delegation. Long a player in the upper reaches of state government, the then-Senate president pulled together enough votes to win Dorchester, though he placed second in Boston and third statewide to then-Treasurer Shannon O'Brien and former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich.

Four years later, Tom Reilly holds many of Birmingham's advantages, plus a few enjoyed by O'Brien. But he's running in a different state, against a different field and, in Boston, in a changed city.

Most political operators interviewed for this article predicted that neither Reilly, who has the blessing of Mayor Thomas Menino, nor Christopher Gabrieli, whose Beacon Hill address qualifies him as the city's only resident in the race, but Deval Patrick to earn the plurality of the Hub's votes next Tuesday.

In polls released this week, Patrick held the statewide lead as well, with a CBS-4 poll released Thursday slotting him at a breakaway 45 percent, fully 16 percent ahead of second-place Gabrieli. A tighter State House News Service poll put Patrick 10 points ahead of Gabrieli, and a booming 17 above Reilly, who has tumbled below 20 percent in recent surveys.

Patrick, the state's first major African-American politician in decades and a well-styled speaker with a progressive message, fits neatly in a city that has come to see itself as increasingly liberal.

"Deval being the most progressive, although still moderate, of the three candidates, I think he'll do well in Boston," said Giovanna Negretti, executive director of ¿Oíste?, a Latino political group that planned to endorse Patrick this week.

Rep. Michael Moran was part of a contingent earlier this year that prevailed on Gabrieli to enter the race, after Reilly had spurned him in favor of ill-fated running-mate choice Marie St. Fleur, the Dorchester state representative. But Moran, a Brighton Democrat and former professional political consultant, picks Patrick to win the city, saying he could sweep 11 of the city's 22 wards.

Moran said the Milton attorney, who was civil rights chief of the Clinton Justice Department before working as a corporate officer, could pile up the type of numbers that Sheriff Andrea Cabral rode in 2004 to prevail over Moran's former boss, At-Large City Councillor Stephen Murphy.

Who is, in this election, backing Patrick.

Murphy's support likely won't aid Patrick in the heavily ethnic and liberal wards &endash; western Dorchester, Jamaica Plain, the South End, Roxbury &endash; where Patrick might already run well, but such backers could help him whittle Gabrieli's and Reilly's support in border neighborhoods like West Roxbury, eastern Dorchester, South Boston, and East Boston. Reilly, an Irishman who has played up his populist credentials in the race's waning weeks, figures to play well there. In Southie, he has the backing of nearly the entire political establishment, minus a conspicuously absent Rep. Brian Wallace. US Rep. Stephen Lynch, state Sen. Jack Hart, and Councillor Jimmy Kelly all joined the mayor in picking Reilly.

Reilly enjoys similar support in Dorchester's thick-polling precincts in Wards 13 and 16. Rep. Martin Walsh and Councillor Maureen Feeney, plus Lynch and Hart, and unions like laborers and firefighters who generate votes in those areas, are sturdy Reilly partisans.

Gabrieli, whose fortune could help him purchase vital media advertising in the final days of the primary, is a wilder card in the Boston vote. Late to the race, the venture capitalist and education think-tank founder missed out on the early rush of support that hyperactive politicos, who gravitate to Boston, pledged to Patrick and Reilly. Gabrieli has long been a staple in the city's Democratic power circles, lavishing his wealth on candidates and causes, a sort of ballot-box Medici. Friendly with Menino, he is also on good terms with Beacon Hill Democratic Rep. Marty Walz.

But Walz said Tuesday that she'd talked to few proclaimed Gabrieli voters &endash; even in his home district, which she represents. And, with or without Menino, Walz thinks her constituents are backing her candidate: Patrick.

The mayor possesses the same "limited influence" as other pols, herself included, Walz said: "The voters are just too independent for the elected officials to sway votes."

East Boston, where Menino is strong, will prove an interesting battleground. Eastie has shown, in past elections, notably suburban patterns of support for Republicans, a conservative streak that likely will cost Patrick there. Gabrieli benefits from the only Democratic campaign office in the neighborhood and help from Eastie Rep. Anthony Petruccelli. But Reilly has Menino and Senate President Robert Travaglini, an Eastie native.

Parts of the city that lean Patrick, notably Roxbury, and parts of Mattapan, Jamaica Plain, and the South End, are further motivated to vote next Tuesday by a high-profile state Senate race, between incumbent Dianne Wilkerson and younger challengers Samiyah Diaz and Sonia Chang-Diaz, and a House race, between William Celester and Willie Mae Allen.

While Walz's point, that the endorsement-equals-tangible-votes equation is invalid, may hold, what may prove equally instructive are recent trends. The city has seen four elections since the 2002 gubernatorial primary that were hyped as iconic, milestone votes for a city that has evolved into minority-majority. First, Felix Arroyo was elected to the City Council for an at-large seat. Then Cabral beat Murphy county-wide. In early 2005, liberal-leaning Linda Dorcena Forry, whose family owns this newspaper, won conservative Speaker Thomas Finneran's House district. Last November, Sam Yoon confounded expectations with a third-place citywide finish for the council. (All four- Arroyo, Cabral, Forry and Yoon- have endorsed Patrick.)

Progressives, and not a few professedly impartial observers, point to Patrick as the next beneficiary of this lineage that the city's liberals claim is the new political alignment here. Notwithstanding Menino's efforts for Reilly, and depending on how vigorous those efforts are, political veterans are saying that Patrick could roll up the heavy numbers in Boston he'd need to venture beyond city limits that have largely confined the broadly hailed election victories of recent years.

Jim O'Sullivan is the former News Editor of the Dorchester Reporter. He is presently a staff reporter for the State House News Service.