Ask not how the Democratic candidates to succeed Sen. Edward M. Kennedy would blaze a new path: Most are too busy trying to prove themselves his ideological twin as the Dec. 8 primary draws near. Rep. Michael E. Capuano, the only candidate with congressional experience, says his Washington seasoning makes him the obvious Kennedy heir. Electing someone who has not worked on Capitol Hill, Capuano said in a recent debate, 'would be to say to Sen. Kennedy, 'Your 47 years of experience weren't worth much.' ' (The debate took place at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate, incidentally, next to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, where Kennedy lay in repose before his funeral.) Stephen G. Pagliuca, a co-owner of the Boston Celtics, has said he decided to run because 'Sen. Kennedy would have wanted me to.' And Alan Khazei, co-founder of a national service program, says the Kennedys were his role models. Khazei's latest advertisement opens with the 'ask not what your country' passage from John Kennedy's Inaugural Address. But playing the Kennedy card may not be a winning strategy after all. Virtually every poll has put Martha Coakley, the state's attorney general and the candidate least inclined to invoke Kennedy, far ahead of her three rivals. Coakley was the first to declare her candidacy (she did announce it at the Omni Parker House, a hotel steeped in Kennedy lore), barely a week after Kennedy's death in August. Her haste drew some barbs. 'She set up a committee six months before my uncle died,' Stephen E. Smith Jr., a son of Kennedy's sister Jean, told The Boston Herald in September. 'There were people on the corner with a huge 'Coakley for Senate' sign two days after his funeral.' A liberal Democrat like her rivals, Coakley has nonetheless billed herself as 'a different kind of leader,' a phrase flashed in her campaign ads . Those ads have not mentioned Kennedy, and yet she has outraised her opponents (though Pagliuca has spent more, by dipping into his personal fortune) and won the highest favorability ratings, which a Boston Globe poll published Sunday put at 71 percent. 'Martha has cut her own image, and it's worked,' said Dan Payne, a Democratic media consultant in Boston who has remained neutral in the race. 'She doesn't need to glom onto the Kennedy legacy, because she's the only one with statewide experience and exposure.' In her biggest political risk to date, Coakley attacked the health care plan passed on Nov. 7 by the House because of its restrictions on abortion coverage. She said she would not support it, a stance that could help her among women but could also backfire among voters eager for a health care overhaul. Khazei and Pagliuca said they would support the bill regardless. And though Capuano ultimately sided with Coakley, he has not been as vocal about the issue. While not criticizing Coakley by name, Kennedy's two sons, Edward Jr. and Patrick, said last week that their father would want the health care legislation to pass even if it included the House abortion restrictions. Kennedy called health care reform 'the cause of my life,' and Democratic leaders in Washington often invoke his name when promoting it. But defying the Kennedys did not appear to hurt Coakley. In The Globe's poll, conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, 42 percent of respondents said she 'would do the best job handling health care reform,' compared with 20 percent for Capuano, 11 percent for Pagliuca and 4 percent for Khazei. (The poll was conducted by telephone Nov. 13-18 with 537 likely Democratic primary voters and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus four percentage points.) Mary Anne Marsh, a Democratic strategist in Boston, said that more than anything else, Coakley's lead was due to her high name recognition as attorney general. She was elected in 2006 after spending eight years in another high-profile job, Middlesex County district attorney. 'In politics, people have to know and like you and believe and trust you before they vote for you,' Marsh said. 'In a very short campaign like this one, the person they know and like most is Martha Coakley, and she walked into the race with that advantage.' At this point, Marsh and other strategists said, the only hope for a Coakley rival to take the lead would be an endorsement from Victoria Reggie Kennedy, Kennedy's widow, or Joseph P. Kennedy II, his nephew and a popular former congressman from Massachusetts. (Earlier in the race, rumors flew that Joseph would back Capuano, now in his sixth congressional term, because he wanted Capuano's House seat freed up for one of his adult sons.) But with Coakley so far ahead in the polls, the strategists said, the Kennedys are unlikely to take a risk on backing anyone else. Nearly four decades after Massachusetts last elected a Republican to the Senate, Marsh says that whoever wins the Democratic primary, the state will get a senator ideologically similar to Kennedy, and that this is what matters. 'Voters are smart enough to know they're not going to get another Ted Kennedy literally or figuratively,' Marsh said, 'but they're looking for someone who has his qualities.' In The Globe's poll, 40 percent of respondents said it was 'very important' for a candidate to share Kennedy's values, 37 percent said it was 'somewhat important,' and 22 percent said it was 'not important at all.' 'That doesn't mean someone who's always raising their hand and saying, 'I'm just like Ted,' ' Marsh said, 'but someone who will be fighting to get people back to work, first and foremost, and to get them health care.' 