Christine C. Quinn was making the rounds at a senior center in Harlem when Scott Bright, a 67-year-old retired security guard wearing a Hawaiian shirt, asked her to pose with him for a photo.
“She’s the man!” he blurted out. “This is the next mayor!”
Moments later, when Ms. Quinn, the City Council speaker, was safely out of earshot, Mr. Bright confessed that he had not much cared for her at first. But “she grew on me over time,” he said, because “a lot of the politicians read from the script. She just says what she believes, even when I don’t agree.”
Political fortune has smiled on Ms. Quinn this summer, as she lays the groundwork for a 2013 mayoral campaign: she helped prevent teacher layoffs and firehouse closings, and advocated the legalization of same-sex marriage. And a formidable potential challenger in the mayoral race, Anthony D. Weiner, saw his hopes implode as a scandal over sexually explicit electronic messages forced him to resign from Congress.
Now, many voters are reassessing Ms. Quinn, who emerged onto the public scene as a left-leaning Chelsea activist but is now courting a broader electorate. With increasing support from a once-skittish business community, Ms. Quinn has raised more money than all the other likely contenders and has the apparent blessing of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.