E-Mail This Article to a Friend The New Bostonians (continued)

VOTERS WHO want an aggressively liberal candidate will likely find Stacey Monahan the most attractive option. This seems counterintuitive: after all, Monahan is the district director for Congressman Stephen Lynch’s Boston office, and Lynch — one of those traditional Boston Democrats — opposes abortion rights and believes economic issues should trump cultural ones. But Monahan is quick to say she’s more liberal than her boss; in fact, she’s the only 12th Suffolk candidate who calls herself a progressive. Like Dorcena Forry, she opposes the death penalty and supports abortion rights; unlike Dorcena Forry, she calls herself "pro-gay-marriage." (Dorcena Forry opts for a more cautious formulation, saying she "opposes putting discrimination into the constitution.")

The big problem with the "New Boston" concept has always been that it suggests the clash of political polar opposites. In the Suffolk County sheriff’s race, for example, Steve Murphy’s experience on the Boston City Council and Cabral’s own missteps before the election largely fell by the wayside: instead, it became Murphy, a conservative white man, opposing Cabral, a liberal black woman. But the competition between Monahan and Dorcena Forry, who both will be targeting the district’s female voters, makes things messier. Quick, who’s more appealing: the white woman who calls herself a progressive, or the black woman who doesn’t? It’s a question that Barbara Lee, whose extensive fundraising and volunteer contacts make her Boston’s pre-eminent female political power broker, will have to ponder as well. Monahan and Dorcena Forry both want the support of Lee — who was instrumental in Cabral’s victory — and plan to meet with her in January to make their respective cases.

Monahan’s avowed progressivism isn’t her only asset. While not as well-connected politically as Dorcena Forry, Monahan expects strong support from Lynch, who she says urged her to run. She’s also counting on the backing of one of Boston’s major unions, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 103, of which her father is a member. But of course, she also has her weaknesses. Like Dorcena Forry, she can be tentative. Unlike Dorcena Forry, she’s surprisingly soft-spoken. And in Dorchester terms, she’s something of a short-timer: though her father grew up in Codman Square, Monahan was born and raised in suburban Pembroke, and has lived in her current Adams Village neighborhood only since 1996. Despite this handicap, Monahan was elected mayor of Dorchester (a symbolic post, but one that requires extensive schmoozing) in 2000; she’s also a member of the Ashmont-Adams Neighborhood Association and Cedar Grove Civic Association. Still, will the white voters in her neighborhood, many of whose families have lived on the same street for generations, want her representing them at the State House? And will black and liberal voters be put off by her decision to put down roots in the heart of conservative white Dorchester?

If Monahan threatens to peel liberal and female voters away from Dorcena Forry, Emmanuel Bellegarde, a Mattapan resident who’s currently an aide to State Senator Jack Hart (D–South Boston), will vie with Dorcena Forry for the African-American vote. Bellegarde, like Dorcena Forry, is Haitian-American. But compared with Dorcena Forry, who was born in the old Boston City Hospital and grew up in Dorchester, Bellegarde has had an itinerant existence. Born in Haiti, he moved to Boston at age 10, and spent stints in Hyde Park, Brockton, and Miami before purchasing a home in Mattapan last year. By a wide margin, Bellegarde is the candidate who’s lived in the district for the briefest time — a point his competitors will surely make as the campaign develops.

Of course, where you’re from isn’t necessarily as important as the identity you adopt — something our current president has demonstrated all too well. And if George W. Bush, a president’s son, can reinvent himself as a plain-talking Texas everyman, Emmanuel Bellegarde can become a creature of the 12th District. His Haitian roots will help: Mattapan — and, increasingly, Milton — is the geographical and cultural heart of Boston’s Haitian community. So will his smoothness. Maybe it’s the time spent moving from place to place as a child, or maybe it’s his business background (he operates his own real-estate company), but Bellegarde, the youngest candidate in the field, comports himself as though he’s the oldest. On Sunday — decked out in a blue suit, yellow tie, and crisp white shirt — the candidate worked the audience at a chamber-music contest at All Souls Church, in Dorchester’s Ashmont Hill neighborhood. In his interactions with the other audience members, most of whom were white and middle-aged, Bellegarde looked like a veteran pol. He spoke confidently but quietly, forcing listeners to incline toward him just a bit, and repeatedly coupled his comments with a solicitous touch on the arm.

Bellegarde is hard to peg politically. When he speaks of the pathologies of the inner city — of constituents needing "help-outs, not handouts" — he sounds like a boilerplate black conservative. However, Bellegarde also says he supports abortion rights and gay marriage, although he admits arriving at the latter position recently and reluctantly. He has already enlisted as his campaign manager Mukiya Baker-Gomez, the veteran black political operative whose assistance down the campaign’s homestretch helped propel Cabral to victory in September. And he has the backing of ordained minister and former City Council candidate Ego Ezedi, whom Bellegarde calls a mentor, and who could help cultivate support among Boston’s conservative black clergy.

THAT LEAVES Eric Donovan, an attorney in the House Counsel’s office and the most conservative candidate of the bunch. Donovan terms himself an "urban Democrat," but his positions — he supports civil unions but not gay marriage, backs the death penalty in certain cases, and is, at best, a lukewarm supporter of abortion rights — are conservative in the Massachusetts Democratic spectrum. As a white Irish male with such views, Donovan is likely to be cast as the race’s designated bad guy, something he fully realizes. "I hope race doesn’t become an issue," he says. "Andrea Cabral just had a tremendous victory, moving the city forward. I know Andrea Cabral’s position was that she was a competent person, she was qualified, she was a professional. Now, a plurality of the people in Suffolk County are white, and they voted for her. Most of the people who live in this district don’t look like me. But I think I’m the most qualified."

Could Donovan win? Campaigning in Adams Village, a few streets from where he grew up and a half-mile or so from his current home, the possibilities and limitations of his candidacy are on full display. As he goes from door to door, Donovan is an unprepossessing figure, short and slight, with thinning blond hair. He’s not a great orator: in a heavy Boston accent, Donovan tells voter after voter that he’s "just grindin’ away," and repeatedly cites Tip O’Neill’s well-worn maxim about taking no one’s support for granted. But he also seems to be on a first-name basis with most of the voters he meets: this one is an old hockey coach, this one went to school with his mother, this one’s an old college roommate. The Old Boston, it seems, still exists within the New. As Donovan walks away, he wears a slight smile on his face. "I don’t mean to sound corny," he says, "but these are my people. I like my chances."

As well he should. Imagine this scenario: Dorcena Forry starts out as the front-runner. But Monahan gets Barbara Lee’s endorsement, then proceeds to pull in a chunk of the liberal vote and the women’s vote. Bellegarde, meanwhile, uses his roots in the Haitian community to attract a surprisingly large number of registered Haitian voters. Dorcena Forry finishes with 33 percent of the vote, Monahan with 20, Bellegarde with 10. And Donovan? Owning his base of conservative Irish voters — who always turn out in high numbers, even for special elections — he ekes out a win with 35 percent.

The scenario is plausible enough that State Representative Byron Rushing, one of Boston’s veteran African-American politicians, thinks Dorcena Forry or Bellegarde should drop out. "In a district like this, that’s had such a long tradition of black people not being involved on this level of politics, I wouldn’t take any chances," Rushing says. "The most important thing is to have a black person win, and I think they have a responsibility — both of them — to work this out." But with Dorcena Forry passing out 10,000 palm cards on Election Day, and Bellegarde insisting on discussing his candidacy in non-hypothetical terms (he won’t answer questions beginning with "If you win ..." until they’re rephrased as "When you win"), this seems highly unlikely. Which, when you get right down to it, isn’t a bad thing. With its neatly contrasting candidates and facile storyline, Cabral versus Murphy was an anomaly. This is the New Boston.

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