He hasn’t been a household name, but Marion Orr may now become a high profile figure on the campaign scene here.

Orr, a 46-year-old political scientist, succeeds Darrell West next week as director of Brown University’s A. Alfred Taubman Center for Public Policy and John Hazen White Public Opinion Laboratory. These folks bring you nationally known speakers and in-depth polls.

Look to TV and newspapers to turn often to Orr, as they did to West, for election commentary. West became a celebrity with his sound bites. Orr, who came to Brown in 1999 after working at Duke University, says that when he first arrived here he’d go into stores and chat up the clerks. “He or she would ask what did I do, where did I work. I would say ‘Brown,’ and they would say, ‘Do you know Darrell West?’ ”

Orr doesn’t see himself as a legend. But West, who is heading for the Brookings Institution in Washington, says, “He is one of the top urban scholars in America and getting him to come to Brown was like signing Kevin Garnett for the Boston Celtics.”

Look for Orr and Brown to get more hands-on involved in working to improve life in Providence, especially the public schools.

Orr, born in Georgia, is pleasantly “shocked” that, given the history of race in this country, an African-American will be a 2008 presidential nominee.

“It’s sort of like when they named Ruth Simmons president of Brown. I felt, as a black guy, very proud.” He says he’d love to see Barack Obama win.

But don’t rush to conclude that Democrat Obama will prevail even though he leads in national polls. Orr, who has worked with West on the Brown Rhode Island surveys, says there are several examples in America of black candidates doing better in polls than on Election Day because some white voters give pollsters “politically correct” answers.

He also says that Republican John McCain’s personal story as a Vietnam War POW is “very, very compelling.”

Democrat Orr, who lives in Cranston, sometimes votes GOP. Example: Steve Laffey for mayor.

Orr is Ivy League now but his background was far from elite.

He grew up in Savannah. His late father, Robert, toiled in a sugar refinery. (Orr himself was there for two summers as he worked his way through college; other jobs included night manager of a fried chicken restaurant and later a sub shop.) His mother, Delores, was a Holiday Inn front-desk clerk.

Orr went to historically black Savannah State College, which opened his eyes to the academic life, to the existence of political science, and professors became role models. “They didn’t have the kind of schedule my father had. My father had a 7 to 3 work shift for 2 weeks, then he’d work 3 to 11, and sometimes he worked 11 to 7.” He thought, “These people are doing something quite different and interesting!” He earned a master’s at Atlanta University and a Ph.D at the University of Maryland.

On a wall in Orr’s office is a famous set of 1957 New York Times pictures, a gift from his wife Ramona. They show then-Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson, in full force, giving the “treatment” to a colleague. Orr is a big Johnson fan.

For the Orrs, the photo set took on added significance when they realized that the senator Johnson was browbeating was Rhode Island’s Theodore Francis Green. “We said, ‘Wow, what a coincidence, we’re in Rhode Island now, and here’s President Johnson and he’s doing ‘the treatment’ to T.F. Green.’ ”

Talk about coincidences: Green was a Brown alum and lived near the campus.

M. Charles Bakst is The Journal’s political columnist.

mbakst@projo.com