Clark explains that Moakley had an emotional attachment to his supporters.

“Voters want their representatives to be a little purer, a little smarter, and a little more competent than themselves. Yet they want their representative to be an equal. Moakley was all [of] this,” Clark said.

While no candidate may leap out of the crowd as a peer of Moakley’s caliber, neither Moakley nor O’Neill started out in Congress as legends, according to O’Connor.

“It’s really too early to tell what kind of congressmen any of the candidates would be. Moakley was relatively unknown and wasn’t that outstanding when he was elected. It took him many years to develop his expertise,” O’Connor says.

But despite his humble beginnings as an elected official, all the candidates venerate Moakley’s service for the district.

“Maybe, just maybe, if I work from sun up till sundown, I can fill one of Joe Moakley’s shoes,” says Lynch, who recalls Moakley reminding politicians to remember “the people upstairs, downstairs and across the back fence.”

If elected, Lynch hopes to serve the Ninth in the same vein, as he tells his supporters, “When I go to Congress, we all go to Congress.”