Today Stephen Levin faces OTBKB's coffee cup. A major in classics at Brown Univeristy, Levin has wonky good looks and a boyish, disarming manner. His father's cousins are Michigan's Senator Carl Levin and Congressman Sander Levin and he's Vito Lopez's chief of staff. Lopez, who is often portrayed as a Darth Vader figure in Brooklyn politics taught the 29-year-old Levin about "knocking on doors, talking to as many people as possible, the
importance of having a command of the issues, and having empathy for
the people," Levin told me. A pragmatist, Levin believes that for for every problem there is a solution that is not readily apparent."

And in case you missed these from the 33rd:

Breakfast-of-Candidates: Doug Biviano. Expect the
unexpected from Biviano. A civil engineer with degrees from Cornell
University,  Biviano works as a superintendent in Brooklyn Heights
apartment building and as New York State Coordinator for
presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, whose politics of peace are a
strong influence. Biviano has lived the skiers life in Colorado and
sailed the Inter-Coastal Highway with his wife installing solar panels
on a boat he barely knew how to sail.

Breakfast of Candidates: Jo Anne Simon.  Her career trajectory from teacher of the deaf to disability rights attorney will make you feel like a slacker  and
wonder how she had time to become such a strong voice in her community
and the female Democratic District Leader and State Committeewoman for
the 52nd Assembly District. A proponent of the art of listening, she
believes that there's a place for all viewpoints at the table and that
"someone who is elected to office can work with everyone."

Breakfast-of Candidates; Evan Thies.
A former aide to City Council Member David Yassky, Thies also worked in
Hillary Clinton's upstate senate office and for Andrew Cuomo. Raised in
New Hampshire, public service was the family business and his
grandmother, Mary Mongron, was appointed by NH governor John
Sununu to be New Hampshire's Commissioner of Health and Human
Services. Struck as a child with Fibromatosis, a chronic disease, he
was
homeschooled during the worst of his illness. When he was 11, he and
his mother wrote and passed a bill about his disease. Evan studied his
twin interests, political science and journalism, at Syracuse
University but knew that he was called to public service like his grandmother.

Breakfast-of-Candidates: Ken Diamondstone: A lover of diner food, Diamondstone runs an affordable
housing business with an emphasis on "nice spaces for low prices." He
could have made a killing in the real estate biz but instead stuck to
his principles. Affordable housing is clearly Diamondstone's passion
and through his
business he has been able to translate ideals into action. He is
also a member of three local Democratic clubs and an early opponent of
Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project. For Diamondstone, who is
openly gay and lives with his longtime partner, Joe, the rights of the
LGBT commuity is high on his list of
priorities. But so is the environment. As chair of the Brooklyn Solid
Waste Council he was involved with the Zero Waste Coalition and passage
of NYPIRG's Bigger, Better, Bottle Bill.

And here are the 39ers:

Breakfast-of-Candidates: Gary Reilly. At 34 he's not quite the youngest of the candidates (John Heyer beats
him on that score) but he's plenty wet behind the ears and full of
enthusiasm about public transportation and other issues that affect voters.

Breakfast-of-Candidates: Bob Zuckerman. A long-time politico, Bob is currently
executive director of the Gowanus Canal Community Development
Corporation and  Gowanus Canal Conservancy.  He remembers the night
Richard Nixon was elected in 1968 (he was 7-years-old) and one of his
heroes is Harvey Milk.

Breakfast-of-Candidates: Brad Lander, The intellectual of the group, Brad has two master's degrees and
a BA from the University of Chicago. He made his mark running
community organizations like the Fifth Avenue Committee and Pratt
Center for Community Development, advocating for affordable housing and community sustainablility.

Breakfast-of-Candidates: Josh  Skaller. A former computer music composer at
Harvard, it was Howard Dean's presidential campaign that jumpstarted
his interest in electoral politics. As president of the Central
Brooklyn Independent Democrats, he learned to facilitiate dialogue  and
manage strong personalities. Running on a community empowerment
platform with a strong interest in the environment and smart
development, Josh is proud to be refusing donations from  real estate
developers.

Breakfast of Candidates: John Heyer: An assistant to Borough President Marty Markowitz, Heyer is the only candidate for City Council born in the 39th district. A
fifth-generation Carroll Gardener, his twin passions are politics and
theology. He works as a funeral director at Scotto's Funeral home and
his knowledge of the history of the neighborhood runs deep though he is
only 27 years old.

Breakfast-of-Candidates: David Pechefsky. The Green Candidate, Pechefsky worked for 10 years in the central staff of
the New York City Council. With a master's degree in public policy and
experience advising local governments in Africa, Pechefsky knows how the
City Council works from the inside out and has ideas about how it could
better serve the people of New York City.

Stephen Levin faced OTBKB's coffee cup at Ozzie's on Fifth Avenue in Park Slope. At 9:15 in the morning, the humidity was already high but Levin arrived good-natured and cheerful after campaigning at the Borough Hall subway stop. By way of an introduction, he handed me a campaign brochure, a button and a campaign pen, which I needed because the pen I brought was out of ink.

We ordered coffee and talked easily for 90 minutes or so.

I had to be honest. I told Levin point-blank that he was being portrayed, disparagingly, as "Assemblyman Vito Lopez's guy." And Assemblyman Lopez is probably one of the most demonized—and powerful Democratic figures in Brooklyn.

"At your first candidates forum I expected you to come in wearing a black cape or something." I told him.

But Levin has something like wonky good looks. Small framed and skinny, he's got a boyish, friendly face and in a blue button down shirt and a tie he has a  disarming, low key manner.

Still, there's no denying that Levin is Lopez's chief of staff. But where some see Lopez as a Darth Vader figure with a sometimes corrupt approach to politics, Levin sees Lopez as "a great teacher and someone who taught him strategy and the value of running an on-the-ground campaign."

Levin has other important mentors, too. His father's cousin is none other than Carl Levin, the Senior United States Senator from Michigan and the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

And his father's other cousin (and Carl's brother) is Congressman Sander Levin, Democratic representative from the 12th congressional district in Michigan, where he has served since 1983. In fact, when Levin was first contemplating his run for City Council he called cousin Sander (and his wife) for advice.

"We talked about the district. The issues. He wanted to know my chances of winning and what I've been doing.  After listening for about an hour they said 'Yeah, do it. Sounds like a good idea.'"

Born in 1980 (no, that is not a misprint), Levin grew up in Plainfield, New Jersey. His father is a lawyer, who served in Vietnam as part of the Marine Corps and his mother is an art teacher. At home, Levin and his brother "were encouraged to be curious, open and to follow our interests. My parents encouraged hard work and intellectual curiosity," Levin told me.

History was also a topic that was often discussed at home. "My dad always emphasized the back story, the importance of history and getting the full facts. If we were talking about the Vietnam War, he'd bring up French colonialism. There's always more to the story."

So it's no accident that Levin majored in classics at Brown University. "Classics gives you a perspective. There are many parallels with modern life. History is a great teacher," he told me.

The attacks on September 11th, which occurred when Levin was a junior in college, convinced him that he wanted to be involved in public life. After graduation from Brown Levin came to NYC and searched for a job in politics or the non-profit sector.

That's when he landed a temporary stint working on  Lopez's re-election campaign where he "basically went out for coffee and did clerical work." But over time he learned Lopez's approach to campaigning which involves  "knocking on doors,  talking to as many people as possible, the importance of having a command of the issues, and having empathy for the people," Levin said.

After Lopez's successful run, Levin got a job with a lead safe house program in Bushwick. He looks back very fondly on that experience, where he was an advocate for families whose children's blood tests revealed high and dangerous levels of lead. The law requires that these families move out of their homes immediately until the problem is rectified. The safe house was needed as a temporary refuge for families who faced this temporary dislocation. "I got very involved in people's lives and helped to walk them through the bureaucracy."

Around that time, Levin also ran an anti-predatory lending program in
Bushwick, where, he says, he helped to organize homeowners and teach them about lending practices that were "decimating the
neighborhood with foreclosures."

In 2006, Levin became Lopez's chief of staff. "Vito trusts me and lets me flourish on policy. He's been a tremendous help and a great teacher." Clearly, Levin was expecting the negativity about Lopez going in to his City Council run but he refuses to speak disparagingly of his boss and mentor.

Levin has been canvassing the 33rd district, "from Grand Army Plaza to Newtown Creek" since January and has learned that there are "no short cuts to talking to people and learning what they care about."

When Levin talks about meeting senior citizens, his empathy for people's lives really comes through. "It's heartbreaking. They live on fixed incomes and pensions. There's a long waiting list for Section 8 housing. When a city is run like a business it loses its human face. I want to help people," he says. "I see a lot of people out there in need."

Levin describes himself as a very practical person. "I believe that for every problem there is a solution that is not readily apparent."

Suddenly Levin stands up and walks to a bookshelf across from where we're sitting. He pulls out a book called Breathing for a Living: A Memoir.

"This is my good friend from college," he says of the author of the book, Laura Rothenberg, who died while at Brown of cystic fibrosis. The coincidence of finding this book at Ozzie's provides Levin with an opportunity to talk about what he learned from his friend.

"Life is precious. Time is limited. It really puts thing in perspective. Laura was fearless not shrinking. She had an inner strength."

Clearly, Levin has an inner strength, too. He's smart, well educated and very, very young. But he knows a lot about history and like his father and his relatives Sander and Carl, Levin wants to extend the family legacy of politics and public service. I don't get a very ideological feeling from Levin or the sense of a strong, political agenda. He strikes me as someone who wants to fix things one problem at a time as he believes, pragmatically, that there's a solution to every problem.

At the end of 90-minutes it was time for me to run as I had an interview scheduled with Ken Baer over at Cousin John's on Seventh Avenue…