Sticking to his style

The diner is a converted railway car in Somerville’s Ball Square, the city that Capuano ran as mayor before being elected to Congress in 1998.

He gets a warm reception from the other patrons as he sits down to breakfast, but it isn’t unanimous. Just after we sit down to talk, a woman plops down next to him, and demands to know how Capuano plans to vote on the health care bill. “Which bill?’’ he asks. “There are three separate bills in the House, and another bill in the Senate.’’ He says he can’t take a position without knowing what will be in the final legislation.

What she really wants to know is whether he is in favor of the so-called public option. She isn’t in favor of universal health coverage, she tells him, not if she has to pay for it. Her congressman tells her she can’t just listen to what she hears on talk radio. When he asks about her family’s health coverage, she mentions that her pregnant granddaughter is on MassHealth, a state program that provides insurance for those who can’t afford if. “So it’s fine for your granddaughter, but the hell with everyone else?’’ Capuano asks her.

Nobody backs down, but they part amicably, and Capuano goes back to his meal.

It’s an unusually candid congressman-constituent exchange. Usually when politicians come face to face with antagonistic residents, they smooth over differences, emphasize areas of agreement, politely escape. But that isn’t Capuano’s style, as he will proudly tell you.

“If people want someone who will just play it safe, that voter isn’t going to be with me,’’ he said. “I’m not going to change to be something I’m not.’’

By most projections, Capuano faces a major challenge in winning the seat Ted Kennedy held. But to hear him tell it, he is exactly where he wants to be. “It was no different in 1998,’’ he said. “You thought I was going to lose then, too.’’

Since then, he has built a reputation as an inside player, especially nimble at building relationships with more powerful colleagues. In fact, one of the reasons he is coy about his position on health care is because House leadership is adamant that it will support only a bill with a public option. Capuano also says he won’t vote for a bill without a public option.

It’s kind of odd listening to Capuano, who has always presented himself as an outsider, talking about his close ties to power. The balancing act he is attempting to strike is tricky: It is hard to be credible both as a guy from the neighborhood, and a power-wielding insider.

He is far better prepared to talk about major national issues than his opponents, because he has been dealing with them for years. But that outsider persona that worked so well for him a decade ago feels less authentic now.

Capuano declines to be specific when I ask how he plans to win the race, in which Attorney General Martha Coakley seems to be the clear favorite. “I have a plan, which I am not about to share with you,’’ he says. “But I believe this will be decided by the best voters in the state, who pay attention to substantive issues.’’

In other words, it seems he is banking on a low turnout, and believes that in a left-leaning primary electorate, he can win as the darling of progressives.

Capuano has encouraged the notion that he is the true political heir to Kennedy in this field. That may be his strongest argument. But of course, none of the candidates in this race will bear any comparison to Kennedy any time soon. And he knows it.

“Nobody’s going to walk in,’’ he says, “with 47 years of seniority.’’