“To the extent that I am an insider I have been fighting for the outsider,” Birmingham said. “It’s the raison d’etre for my candidacy.”

Raised in Chelsea, Birmingham is a Rhodes Scholar, a graduate of Harvard Law School and a labor lawyer before entering the Mass. Senate in 1991.

As senate president, Birmingham is working with Swift and House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran to close the budget gap.

Birmingham says he would be willing to raise the income tax rate to 5.6 percent in order to solve the budget crisis—the only Democratic candidate to do so.

“I think trying to accomodate the biggest tax cut in the history of the state

in the middle of a recession is pure madness,” he says. “I am not prone to tell the people of Massachusetts a fairy tale.”

Birmingham seeks to further deconstruct his image as part of the state political machine by emphasizing his record of legislative leadership in core issues such as education, health care, housing and the environment.

Making New Rules

At 6-foot-4 inches tall, Warren E. Tolman looks every inch the part of Mr. Clean—and that is just fine with him.

The former state senator and 1998 contender for Lt. Governor is the only democrat running as a Clean Elections candidate—a 1998 ballot initiative passed in a state referendum to decrease the influence of money in politics.

Tolman’s court battle to make the state release the public funds owed to him has kept his name in the press, but clean election statutes have restricted his ability to raise a competitive war chest.

Still, while Tolman acknowledges his name recognition is low, he insists he will have enough money to get his message out

“Am I surprised that I am where I am in the polls? No,” Tolman says. “I have been playing by a different set of rules from everybody else.”