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LIKE FATHER ...

On social issues, Ed Flynn is very much his father’s son. A devout Catholic, Ray Flynn routinely lobbied against abortion as a Boston city councilor, and left the mayoralty in 1993 to become the US ambassador to the Vatican. After his return from Rome, and short-lived runs for governor and congress, the elder Flynn staked out an identity as a national spokesman for conservative Catholics. During the 2004 presidential campaign, he hammered John Kerry for his support of abortion rights, and he continues to campaign against gay marriage.

Ed Flynn — who attended St. Augustine’s in South Boston as a kid, and graduated from Salve Regina, a Catholic college in Newport, Rhode Island — is decidedly conservative on abortion and gay marriage, both of which he opposes. (He also opposes civil unions for gays and lesbians, and does so in an oddly truculent way: "On civil unions, I’d still support marriage between a man and a woman, so if that means I’m against civil unions, I guess that’s what it is.") Furthermore, Flynn fits the stereotypical South Boston–conservative mold on the student-assignment issue. Despite professing empathy for Boston’s blacks and Latinos, and promising to serve as a kind of racial healer if elected, Flynn insists it’s time to move back toward a neighborhood-schools framework, something that’s broadly opposed in Boston’s minority communities.

In addition to being a social conservative, though, Ray Flynn was a genuine economic populist. And Ed Flynn seems to share his father’s keen (if selective) identification with the downtrodden and dispossessed. During an interview at the McDonald’s near Haymarket, Flynn condemns the way the biolab project unfolded. "There wasn’t a neighborhood voice in the initial process," he says. "If I were elected, I’d fight for the neighborhoods.... No one’s against development, but people want fair development and equal development. And as we see in South Boston, there’s not a strong neighborhood voice on these development issues."

He and White also differ on the Community Stabilization Act (CSA), a twice-rejected City Council proposal to limit the ability of large landlords to increase rents. White says rent control doesn’t work, and that she would have voted against the CSA; Flynn says he would have backed it.

His pet issue, though, is drug treatment. Flynn’s brother, Ray Jr., has struggled with alcoholism. And Flynn — who lives with his wife and kids in a South Boston home near three separate housing projects, and who works as a substitute teacher at Charlestown High School — says he routinely witnesses the wages of drug addiction. "South Boston has a terrible drug problem. Charlestown has a terrible drug problem. It impacts every family in this city — white, black, rich, poor." As a councilor, Flynn promises, his first bit of legislation would involve providing drug treatment on demand throughout the city, regardless of ability to pay.

Right now, Flynn seems to have little in common with White other than their mayoral pedigrees. White is widely considered a favorite to win election to the council this year, but it’s hard to find anyone who expects Flynn to finish in the top four this year. This is due, in part, to White’s strong showing in 2003. But the sharply divergent legacies of their fathers are a factor as well. The White administration had its share of problems, but Kevin White is remembered fondly (especially after a dozen years of Tom Menino) as an attractive, compelling, visionary leader. In contrast, Flynn’s awkward return to Boston — and his high profile in conservative-Catholic circles — has tarnished the memory of his legacy for many voters who remember his mayoral tenure.

Then again, Flynn has — like his father — a kind of down-to-earth, everyman-ish appeal that can be remarkably winning, even if you disagree with his politics. On a Sunday late last month, one day after the birth of his second child, Flynn officially kicked off his campaign by walking through every neighborhood in Boston. He started off, at 9 am, at Charlestown High, moseying through the bleak housing projects at the neighborhood’s southern edge and then heading up Bunker Hill Avenue. In his awkwardly fitting baseball cap and white polo shirt emblazoned with the South Boston Vietnam Memorial logo (Flynn is a Navy veteran), he wasn’t much to look at. But as he approached voter after voter with a diffident, almost apologetic air, he seemed to get a number of promising responses — and odd as it sounds, it was hard not to root for him.

"You know it’s gonna be quiet," Flynn explained just before crossing over into the North End. "But you’ll see a few people. And they’ll talk to other people." This kind of shoe-leather campaigning brought Ray Flynn into City Hall. This fall, we’ll see if it can do the same for his son.

Adam Reilly can be reached at areilly[a]phx.com.