The fellow standing next to me at Mayor Daryl Finizio's campaign event this week was an enthusiastic audience member, hooting for the candidate's promise that the era of big tax increases is over, and then, at the end, shouting loudly over and over: "Four More Years."

When I asked the shouter afterward, he confirmed he was a staff member of the campaign.

It reminded me of when Linda McMahon paid people to shout and demonstrate on her behalf during a debate at the Garde Arts Center in her campaign for U.S. Senate.

The pro-Finizio shouting struck me as a little overwrought, too staged, especially jarring in a little room with no more than a couple of dozen people in attendance.

I attended campaign events Tuesday for both Finizio and Democratic challenger City Councilor Michael Passero.

Both were lightly attended — it was a hot summer night, after all — but Passero's seemed decidedly more homespun. There was an assortment of engaged voters on hand who asked the candidate a variety of questions.

Finizio's was much more slick, with the crisply suited candidate delivering a rousing stump speech, complete with audience hooting.

There is no doubt Finizio is much better at campaigning than his opponent for the Democratic nomination. Indeed, the mayor ran a great campaign four years ago. He is apparently much better at campaigning than governing.

Curiously, Finizio is still running as an outsider, even though he has been running the city for close to four years now, doing all the things, like appointing politically connected people to big jobs, that is supposed to give you more control, not just over the government, but your party.

But four years later, Finizio still is railing against the party establishment. He says he doesn't expect to get his party's nomination next week and will have to primary instead.

He has alienated not just what he calls, with a sneer, the old guard, but a lot of moderate Democrats and independents, as well as many of the city's property taxpayers, who are shell-shocked by the big tax hikes the mayor has always insisted on — until this week, when he suddenly declared the era of big tax increases over.

The mayor also is strangely campaigning against corporations, lambasting Pfizer Tuesday night and warning that Electric Boat might pull out of the city next.

This is the same mayor who just recently slapped the city's biggest employer by saying the country is building too many submarines, with defense pork for contractors like EB.

So once he's counted out corporations and their employees and business and property owners — he said Tuesday he is not running to help the owners of downtown buildings — there's not much vote left to court.

This diminishing audience explains the mayor's sharp turn to the left and a wildly progressive agenda from someone who once ran for Westerly Town Council as a Republican.

But even if you like Finizio's new progressive agenda, how much of it can you expect him to accomplish? Not much, I'd say.

He called Tuesday for a public-private partnership to fund universal pre-K. But which demonized corporate citizens are going to come forward to help him with that? His pork-laden EB?

As for a $15 minimum wage, that may work in a big city with its own economy, like Los Angeles. But how would that play out in New London, where it would be just as easy to open your new business in Waterford or Groton?

Could he get the City Council to pass a job-killing measure like that? Not likely, given the current council's unanimous rejection of his last proposed budget.

Finizio said Tuesday he expects the city's future will be decided at the Sept. 16 Democratic primary, apparently conceding he would have little chance to win a general election, with Republicans thrown in, if he loses the Democratic race.

A spokesman for the progressive Working Families Party told me this week a Finizio request for endorsement, which could give him a place on the November ballot if he loses the primary, is under consideration.

A Passero campaign official told me Tuesday they are working on a strategy to stay in for the general election, even if they lose the primary. A petition drive is one way to do that.

I think one telling statistic about the state of the mayoral race is the 67 voters who switched parties this year to become registered Democrats before the Sept. 16 primary.

A city registrar of voters told me a lot of diehard Republicans were among the switchers. My guess is that they didn't go to all the trouble of switching parties to vote for the tax-loving progressive.

Yes, the number is small. It amounts to about 1.4 percent of the total vote in the last mayoral election.

But it shows strong voter commitment. I think that will be a hard thing for the mayor to muster from his new target constituency, especially on a Wednesday in September, when there is no other reason to go out and vote.

This is the opinion of David Collins.

d.collins@theday.com

Twitter: @DavidCollinsct