perhaps sensing the inevitability of young Hynes in their future, chipped in with some nice contributions from their Arlington International Racecourse and other corporate holdings.

Hynes admits he inherited some of his father's relationships, but wants it remembered that he inherited some enemies as well. In his mind, his father's greatest gift to him was the advice he received during the campaign and the knowledge he had going in.

Indeed, it was Hynes' ability to carefully make a plan and stick to it, a trait directly attributable to his methodical father, that most impressed Lebed.

A story Hynes told the junior high students is illuminating on that point. It seems he was what they called the commissioner of school spirit for his grammar school, a post that required him to organize the year's first pep rally. After everybody gathered in the gym, Hynes went to the microphone, but the microphone didn't work.

"I've never been so embarrassed in my whole life," he says, recalling the look of "disappointment and anger" on the face of his eighth-grade teacher Mrs. Doolittle, who he says yelled at him so loudly afterward that there was no need for a microphone.

While the story provided a lighthearted moment in an otherwise sober speech, Hynes uses it to make a point. "You've got to be organized. You've got to plan properly. You've got to be dedicated to what you're doing," he tells the kids.

Those around him say he takes that advice to heart, almost obsessively at times. During the campaign, he gathered a group of comptroller's office veterans to drill him almost daily about the issues and operations of the office. Others thought he'd be better off making fundrai sing calls, but he was determined to hold his own in the Blue Room, the place where press conferences are held in the Statehouse. For the Navy Pier party, he even insisted on hearing a tape of the band before approving their selection.

"Our campaign was based on organization, preparation and attention to detail," Hynes says. "What is it?" he asks, turning to aide Frank Bilecki. "Failing to prepare is preparing to fail," they repeat in unison.

But the self-deprecating sense of humor evident in the pep rally story is also part of the makeup. His mother relates that Hynes, shorter than his brother Matt despite being two and a half years older, always joked that he was the only kid who wore "hand-me-ups."

"Other kids would have a problem with that," says his mother; who overcame her misgivings about Dan's new career path and helped out in his campaign by passing out literature, putting up yard signs and recruiting supporters - a level of involvement unseen in her husband's races.

Dan's sense of humor disappears quickly, however, when pressed about the validity of a statement in his campaign bio that asserted: "Dan Hynes has extensive experience in working with federal, state and local government."

Actually, Hynes' governmental experience, if defined traditionally, is quite limited. There's the small matter of his taking the modern candidate's approach of dispensing entirely with the niceties of working up through elective ranks as either a local officeholder or even a one-term legislator. Then again, he at least took the two-step approach by settling for comptroller instead of running straight out for governor or senator; as is sometimes the case these days.

His campaign bio states that he worked on Madigan's House legal staff, but that turns out to be ajob he held for a few months during law school in which he helped write bill analyses. His bio also says he served on the staff of the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee, which also turns out to have been just a summer college internship, a plum that the committee's then-chairman, former Congressman Dan Rostenkowski, bestowed upon many of the sons and daughters of Chicago's political and business elite.

He left out a position he held in the attorney general's office under family friend Neil Hartigan, a high school summer job helping out in the photocopy room.

Hynes says he never tried to emphasize his experience in government, only that he has a lot of experience "working with" government through his legal practice, where he specialized in representing hospitals on business matters, bringing him in contact with numerous government regulatory agencies.

Campaign bio aside, Hynes points to the undeniable truth that he benefits from a "lifelong exposure to government and politics." "I think I just had an intuitive sense of government from growing up in a political family," he says. And he points out that by his next campaign, nobody will care about his prior experience because he'll have four years as comptroller on which to be judged.

They may care, however, about learning some of those personal details that get lost when a guy runs for something as far down the ticket as comptroller. So here goes: Hynes no longer lives in the Beverly neighborhood where he grew up and his father still holds sway. He's got a condo in Lincoln Park, longtime home of Lakefront liberals but more recently of lots of Republicans. Until recently, he was president of the 43rd Ward Democratic organization, which can't hold a candle to the 19th Ward organization over which his father reigns as committeeman.

Whether Hynes remains in Lincoln Park or returns to his South Side roots someday now depends partly on his fiancee, Christina Kerger. They are scheduled to be married in June. She's a second-year medical school student from Hammond, Ind., who also happens to be the daughter of a former Indiana state legislator. They met at a party at Notre Dame, where each did their undergrad work, although they didn't meet until after graduation.

Hynes went to high school at St. Ignatius College Preparatory, a topnotch parochial school that has been a first choice for many Chicago