Capuano attacks front-runner Coakley

Before Michael Capuano gets there, though, he will have to get past Attorney General Martha Coakley, who is considered, for now, the front-runner in the Democratic race. And he is wasting little time in going after her.

“She’s not a liberal. How do you figure that? Who said she was?’’ Capuano said in an interview yesterday with the Globe. “Voters will think about philosophy and issues and whether someone can deliver on that philosophy and issues.’’

Capuano called himself an underdog in the four-candidate race for the Democratic nomination, a role he said he has played in every competitive campaign he has run. He said that even though he may trail Coakley in name recognition and money, he can still win. Coakley, he said, has lost some of her momentum.

“A month ago it was a coronation,’’ he said. “That’s not the case any more. People say how can you possibly win. Look, I’ve heard that before, all my life, with everything I’ve ever done. I’m not tilting at windmills here. I’m not doing this for fun. I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t think it was realistically possible. The plan we decided on early on is exactly what we’re doing, and it’s slowly working.’’

A Coakley spokeswoman did not respond to requests for comment.

The other two contenders in the primary are Celtics co-owner and private equity investor Stephen Pagliuca and Alan Khazei, cofounder of the City Year national public service program.

Capuano, speaking in his trademark forceful, nonstop style, said that while his ideology leans to the left, he also appeals to more conservative, working-class voters.

“My supporters are all underdogs,’’ he said. “That’s who I represent. I attract people who have been told on a repeated basis that they can’t do something - they can’t have a particular job or go to that particular school or live in that particular neighborhood.’’

He continued, “I’m the guy who wants to provide everybody an opportunity to get in the middle class and stay there.’’

Capuano brushed off suggestions he was being sexist when he described Coakley as cautious. He said his wife, Barbara, laughed when she heard the charge.

“I don’t think the average person thinks the use of the word cautious to describe generic candidates is a sexist term. If they do, I’ll lose,’’ he said. “There definitely are sexist terms and I hope I don’t utter them. I don’t think that way.’’

The former Somerville mayor said the majority of his department heads in the city were women.

“I didn’t hire a single one of them because they were women,’’ he said. “I didn’t hire anyone because they weren’t. I hired the best possible people I could find.’’

He acknowledged that he sometimes says things that irritate people, saying his straight talk was more refreshing than abrasive.

He scoffed at suggestions by Pagliuca, a multimillionaire, that he is a Washington insider beholden to special interests.

“He is a special interest,’’ Capuano said.

A Pagliuca spokesman declined comment.

Capuano, who reported collecting $300,000 in September, acknowledged he doesn’t have the ability to raise millions of dollars as quickly as the other candidates.

Coakley raised more than $2.1 million in the first month of the campaign, and Khazei, a political newcomer, raised $1.1 million.

Pagliuca raised $200,000, but has a personal fortune that has been estimated at $400 million.

“I don’t have a national network,’’ he said. “I’ve always been outgunned. I know how much money I need and I guarantee I’m going to raise it, the old-fashioned way, one to one.’’

On policy issues, Capuano said he supports a national health care plan, but insists such an overhaul include a public insurance option to compete with private plans.

He said he supports the president’s deployment of troops to Afghanistan but only if the mission continues to be rooting out terrorists with links to Al Qaeda.

“That’s what I voted for,’’ he said. “But now, eight years later, it’s a fair question to ask if the mission is still the same. It doesn’t feel that it is. I’m trying to give our president the benefit of the doubt. If his plan is to send 30,000 more troops to simply win the war, my vote is no.’’

As he runs for higher office, Capuano said he has doffed, for now, the trademark short-sleeve shirts, but isn’t ready for a wholesale makeover. (In fact, he looked somewhat uncomfortable yesterday in his gray pinstriped suit.)

“Some people want me to be more senatorial, no more short sleeves and wear a more tailored suit. But that’s not only not me; it’s not who I represent,’’ he said. “If that’s what people want, I’m not going to win.’’

He added: “I need to be able to look at myself in the mirror now and when I’m 90 years old and say I did the right thing, or at least tried to do the right thing.’’