PROVIDENCE - Can an openly gay Jewish man who happens to be the son of one of New England's best-known organized-crime lawyers become the next mayor of Rhode Island's largest city?

Can a state representative from the city's wealthiest neighborhood — a man who owns both a Porsche and a Rolls-Royce — win the votes of the city's poorest residents?

Can a lawyer best known for defending criminals convince voters he is the vessel for cracking down on crime in the state's roughest neighborhoods?

A decade or two ago, no serious Providence political figure would answer yes to all of those questions. This tradition-bound Northeastern city was dominated by white, Roman Catholic voters.

But when the votes are counted after the Sept. 10 primary, nobody in the city's political establishment will be surprised if David Cicilline, 41, is chosen as the Democratic candidate for mayor.

The reasons for Providence's altered political landscape are many, but two stand out: shifts in population that have made it a city where minorities are now the majority, and an influx of young, single professionals into neighborhoods that were once ethnic bastions.

Cicilline has done more to exploit this New Providence than any of the other three candidates. He started raising substantial money and organizing a campaign more than a year before the incumbent, Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr., was convicted on a federal rackeetering conspiracy charge.

"I knew the city was ready for a fresh start," says Cicilline, on the run as always last week, darting from one event to another. "I knew the public was sick of the pervasive public corruption in the Cianci administration ... of a City Hall that worked only for the favored few."

While his principal opponent in the four-way Democratic primary — Joseph R. Paolino Jr., a former city mayor — waited to see if Cianci would be convicted, Cicilline jumped into the race, enthusiastically slamming Cianci.

Cicilline's message in this election — change — fits with what has happened in Providence over the past two decades. City neighborhoods that were once Irish-American or Italian-American areas — Silver Lake, Olneyville, Manton, Mount Pleasant — have witnessed white flight and an influx of Hispanics, who now make up about 30 percent of the city's population.

Providence is increasingly two cities, a place of the rich and poor; the middle class has shrunk. Forty percent of the children in the city live in impoverished families, according to U.S. Census figures. Eighty-four percent of Providence's public school students are minorities.

RAISED in Providence and Narragansett, David Cicilline is one of five children of John M. "Jack" Cicilline and Sabra Cicilline. His father is known as a smart criminal lawyer who some colleagues and judges believe became too friendly with the many organized-crime clients he represented.

Jack Cicilline once bragged that New England Mafia bosses Raymond L.S. Patriarca and his son, Raymond J. "Junior" Patriarca, were "close personal friends."

In 1985, a federal jury cleared Jack Cicilline of charges of obstruction of justice and conspiring to have a witness give false testimony for mobster Frank L. "Bobo" Marrapese Jr., who had been his client.

David Cicilline bristles while declaring that his father was unfairly charged by the government because he had beaten federal prosecutors so often in organized-crime cases.

"It was a totally trumped-up charge. They just did it to damage his reputation.... It was a very difficult time for my family," he says.

Of the mobsters his father represented and associated with, David Cicilline says simply, "Growing up, I met some of them."

But he says that while he admires his father, he rarely represents mobsters and does not mix socially with clients.

After graduating from Georgetown University Law Center, Cicilline worked in the Washington, D.C., public defender's office, then returned home to open a criminal defense practice.

"I represent people accused of serious crimes; there is no doubt about that," said Cicilline.

While he has been a leader on gay-rights issues at the State House, Cicilline in this campaign has played down his sexual orientation.

"I don't think gay issues are central to this campaign," said Cicilline. As is the case with many candidates, he does not feel comfortable being publicly stretched out on the therapist's couch.

He says he that he dated women as a young man and didn't realize he was gay until he was in his 30s. "I didn't know until late in life."

"It wasn't traumatic; I have a very supportive family," said Cicilline.

He says he does not currently have a partner.

Cicilline's mother, Sabra — who is working on his campaign — is Jewish. His father is Roman Catholic. He says he was exposed to both religions and decided to become active at Temple Beth El on the East Side in the "late 1980s or early 1990s — I'm not sure."

CICILLINE GOT his start in politics in 1992, running unsuccessfully for state Senate on the East Side. Two years later he won a state House seat from the same neighborhood.

Cicilline was an energetic legislator and a prototype of the East Side liberal. He fought for gay rights, mandatory AIDS education in schools, adding sexual orientation to the state's "hate crimes" law, and legislation to allow hypodermic needle exchange programs.

He sponsored or co-sponsored legislation to increase welfare payments by 15 percent, a measure ensuring that more minorities would be placed on state juries and to crack down on antiabortion protesters who tried to block access to clinics where abortions are performed.

In the House, he was a supporter of gun-control measures and was a co-sponsor of legislation that repealed the sodomy law that made gay sexual practices criminal acts.

During his eight years at the State House, Cicilline was often a voice for the civil liberties side of crime measures. He acknowledges he doesn't like such get-tough-on-crime policies as mandatory minimum sentences, and in 1996 he argued against a Megan's Law measure that forced sex offenders to register with authorities.

"The court ought to make sentencing decisions," says Cicilline. "That's why we have judges."

He was the chief advocate in 1999 for legislation that would have made it easier for some criminals to tell potential employers that they had never been convicted. Cicilline's "expungement" measure won House approval but was eventually defeated after opposition from Atty. Gen. Sheldon Whitehouse.

And Cicilline pushed legislation that would have it more difficult to prosecute criminals under the state RICO laws.

Cicilline has backed the "separation of powers" legislation that would cut the General Assembly's power, but he acknowledges it is an issue that doesn't much resonate on the streets of Olneyville on an August afternoon that's so hot the pavement shimmers.

What does move people at the Curtis Arms Apartments, in Olneyville, is crime and neighborhood blight. "The city doesn't do anything for this neighborhood," says resident Tony Mollo.

Between scoops of vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce, Cicilline repeats his campaign themes to Mollo and about 20 other residents of the high-rise apartments.

"You walk through Manton and Olneyville at night and it's awful," says Cicilline. "We need police response in our neighborhoods."

He speaks a little Spanish and uses it as often as possible when meeting Hispanic voters, a group he has aggressively courted.

Cicilline is a candidate who stays relentlessly in what politicians call "message" mode; repeating over and over his slogans for improving schools, neighborhoods, and returning integrity to City Hall. And he has taken to hitting Paolino, who was mayor from 1984 to 1991, for doing business the "old way." (Paolino's usual retort is that he represents "experienced change" while Cicilline is "untested" in administrative public office.)

It is true that Cicilline lacks any background in managing a large private or public sector organization; his is a one-person law office.

But those who have worked with Cicilline say he is a fast learner.

In the House, "even people who did not agree with him on issues admired his honesty and dedication," says Rep. Paul Crowley, D-Newport. "David is the kind of guy who is smart enough to figure things out."