If Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy wins the Democratic gubernatorial primary, it'll be one more hurdle in the life of a man who has overcome dyslexia and a state criminal investigation that could have ended his political career.

The fourth-term mayor, a graduate of Boston College and its law school, is a former assistant district attorney in Brooklyn, N.Y., whose late-breaking campaign snatched the endorsement of the Democratic State Convention from New Haven Mayor John DeStefano Jr.

Malloy and DeStefano have turned into a virtual political road show, appearing statewide in a usually collegial attempt to take their messages to the 180,000 or so Democrats expected to vote in the Aug. 8 primary.

"We have worked together for years and we'll continue to work together regardless of this primary," Malloy recently told about 150 people gathered for a debate in the Bloomfield Senior Center.

"We need leadership in this state," he said. "We need strong and powerful people to step forward and to work with us."

In a hint at the potential for political mud-slinging if he wins the primary, Malloy is quick to refer to the Republican governor as "the Rowland-Rell administration," trying to put vestigial blame for the corruption scandals of John G. Rowland on Gov. M. Jodi Rell, who was his lieutenant governor for more than nine years.

"In John Rowland and Jodi Rell's Connecticut, high crime is acceptable, low test scores in schools are acceptable, a burdensome tax

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structure that holds communities like Hartford and New Haven and Bridgeport and others back are acceptable," Malloy, who will turn 51 on Friday, said from the stage.

"It is time for a change. Jodi Rell, no matter how nice she is, has failed us for the last two years for governor and failed us for 10 years as lieutenant governor," he said.

Malloy's dyslexia, diagnosed as a childhood learning and motor-skills deficiency, forced him to rely on memorization in college and law school, often with the support of his wife, Cathy, the director of a sexual- assault crisis center. Malloy and his wife have three sons, aged 21, 18 and 13.

A couple years back, as he was starting his campaign to challenge Rell, Malloy became the subject of an investigation by the office of the Chief State's Attorney that looked into his relationship with local contractors. The probe was eventually dropped and Malloy was cleared.

As an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn from 1980 to 1984, Malloy tried 23 felony cases and won 22 convictions. He touts a 63 percent drop in crime in Stamford, with a population of about 120,000. "In some of our poorest neighborhoods crime actually dropped by about 90 percent," Malloy said. He brags about adding some 4,500 housing units to the city, including about 3,000 in the downtown area.

"As I stand here today, there is one city in the state of Connecticut that requires that all multifamily housing developers build affordable housing on site, in the community, and you'll be proud to know that it's Dan Malloy that has done that," he said.

Universal pre-kindergarten in the public schools is another accomplishment that Malloy promotes, along with the 2,250 minority children his administration has captured for a city-sponsored health insurance program.

Expanded health insurance opportunities and the need for more jobs are major planks for both Malloy, winner at the party's convention, and DeStefano, who's slightly ahead in the polls.

Malloy also takes credit for 5,000 additional jobs that have been created in Stamford during his administration.

On the campaign trail, including a long string of Sunday visits to black and Hispanic churches, Malloy has reached out to the religious community and the Masons fraternal organization for support both in the campaign and if he were to upset Rell in November.

"We are perhaps the wealthiest state if you balance in the high salaries," Malloy said. "We also live in a state with some of the poorest people. Bridgeport, New Haven, Hartford, filled with poor people. "We live in a society when many people want to measure our results by how well they really are doing and want to ignore how poorly the really poor are doing. That's why we need universal health care."

Under Malloy's variant of universal health care, the state would penalize companies that force workers to seek emergency room care for expensive treatment that's compensated by those covered by insurance.

He would also open up the state's health insurance system to non-state employees, to save 20 to 40 percent in consumer costs. He has criticized DeStefano's method for funding his competing health-care initiative. For Speaker of the House James A. Amann, D-Milford, Malloy's candidacy represents a rare chance for Democrats to come together and regain the governor's office for the first time since Gov. William A. O'Neill left office in early 1991.

"I've been up here for 16 years without a Democratic governor," Amann said in a recent interview. "Unfortunately, year after year the Democrat Party splits its base between the moderates and liberals."

Amann believes that Malloy has enough support from unions and a wide range of Democrats to present a real threat to Rell, who's campaigning to win a four-year term in her own right.

"My point is, the only way I can see us beating this governor or any Republican governor is make sure that the person who runs can draw from the most liberal and conservative voters," Amann said. "John DeStefano doesn't do that and neither did Bill Curry" the losing Democrat in the 2002 gubernatorial election.