First test for Reilly, Patrick

(Correction: Because of an editing error, a caption in Saturday's City & Region section incorrectly said that a Deval Patrick campaign event at Biff's Lounge took place on Friday. It occurred Wednesday.)

Sonia Chang-Diaz, a 27-year-old Jamaica Plain resident, sees today's Democratic caucuses for governor as a rare opportunity for ordinary people, instead of the ''well monied" and the ''muckety-mucks," to influence the direction of the state party.

''I'm just little me, a registered Democrat," said Chang-Diaz, who will be one of about 30,000 Democrats participating in caucuses today. ''It's a natural hook for people who want to get involved in the process. Every step along the way matters, and this step is going to have some impact on who's going to be on the ballot."

Democrats will gather in school gymnasiums, town halls, and community centers around the state to participate in nearly 600 caucuses that are the first formal indication of support for gubernatorial candidates Deval L. Patrick, a lawyer and former US Justice Department official, and Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly, as well as the four candidates for lieutenant governor.

Reilly and Patrick spent part of yesterday calling organizers, making predictions, and crafting their messages. The Patrick spin: that he is ''cautiously optimistic." The Reilly spin: that Patrick would do well, but that the caucuses are dominated by liberal activists who are a small portion of the overall electorate.

With the weather expected to be cloudy with high temperatures in the upper 40s, Reilly plans to attend caucuses in West Roxbury, Auburn, and Lowell. Patrick expects to visit Arlington, Roxbury, Reading, Newton, and Acton.

The Democrats at the caucuses will elect about 3,500 of the 5,300 delegates to this June's party convention. (The remainder are elected officials and ''add-ons" to achieve racial and gender balance). Most of the delegates elected today will be pledged to either Patrick or Reilly. Though the pledge is not binding, at the convention delegates typically vote for the candidate they promised to support.

The goal today for Patrick and Reilly is to secure enough convention delegates, 15 percent, to win a place on the September primary ballot. The primary election, not the caucuses or the winner of the convention's endorsement, will determine who will face off against the Republican candidate in November's general election.

But equally important today is the perception among political strategists and activists. The results will gauge how strong Patrick is among the left-leaning party activists he has been courting. The vote also will be taken as a sign of how badly Reilly damaged himself this week by bungling his choice of a running mate.

State Representative Marie St. Fleur, the candidate for lieutenant governor that Reilly chose Tuesday, bowed out Wednesday, the same day the Globe disclosed that she has had three delinquent tax debts in the last four years, including an April 2005 federal tax lien of $12,711 against her and her husband.

Reilly acknowledged Thursday that he failed to closely examine St. Fleur's finances and said that ''politics are not my strong suit."

Joe Cullinane, a Reilly organizer in Weymouth who hopes to be elected as a delegate today, said he doesn't believe that Reilly's misstep will hurt him in that town.

He predicted that most of the 31 delegates elected in Weymouth today will be Reilly delegates and praised the attorney general's record and ''vision for the state."

''I haven't heard anything negative from any of the folks in Weymouth," said Cullinane, 55. ''Most people know that things like this happen, and they're going to watch over the long haul and see how things work out for the campaign."

But Reilly's campaign, pointing to Patrick's popularity among liberal party activists, has been busy lowering expectations.

''I expect to see our opponent get more delegates than we're going to get," Reilly campaign manager Sean Sinclair said in a phone interview yesterday. ''I expect that we're going to get swept in a couple of towns.

''Our strategy all along has been to reach out to a broader universe of people -- Democratic, independent, and Republican -- and that's what we've been doing," he said.

Reilly emphasized his broad appeal in a statement released by his office.

''I am focused on building a future for Massachusetts that Democrats, independents, and Republicans will embrace," he said.

In a phone interview yesterday, Patrick described himself as ''cautiously optimistic" about today's vote. But he also tried to dampen expectations.

''I have a lot of butterflies about it, and I don't underestimate the attorney general's many advantages," Patrick said. ''He's got relationships with local officials and other insiders, and they have organizations. And I'm sure they all will be out working tomorrow, as well."

Patrick also rejected the idea that his support lies mostly with the liberal wing of the party.

''For the past nine or 10 months I've been going around and trying to introduce myself, not just to activists but to people who have checked out of political life, and I've asked them to check back in," he said. ''Liberal is what the competition calls me when they want the moderates to stop listening. The fact is the support for my candidacy is very broad-based."

Chang-Diaz, who is supporting Patrick, described him as ''a good progressive" who ''meets all of my basic criteria in terms of issue stances." But she emphasized that he is more substantive than what she termed ''pie-in-the-sky progressives."

Scott Greenberger can be reached at greenberger@globe.com.