“This Is Vito’s Guy?” asks the Observer‘s political coverage site PolitickerNY of Lopez chief of staff Steve Levin, with an appropriate amount of disbelief. Reporter Reid Pillifant tagged along with Levin as he campaigned around our neighboring 33rd City Council District, conveying through the artful use of quotes the candidate’s gee-whiz bright-eyed prattling — “Every day I kind of go home and I say, I’m trying to take on a lot of responsibility here… It was a year and a half ago that I decided I’m going to go with it, and there’s no turning back. But it’s pretty heavy.” Like whoa man. But I suppose the somewhat more silver-tongued (I mean, for Brooklyn) Lopez was once young and fresh, too.

But Levin, of the New Jersey burbs, is no stranger to politics, no against-all-odds candidate — his father’s cousins include Michigan Rep. Sandy Levin and Senatorial heavyweight Carl Levin. Hardly a mystery why he was chosen over any born-and-bred Brooklynites for Lopez’s chief of staff at age 25.

On being asked “what kind of Democrat” he is: “You know what, this is going to sound like a cop-out, but I’m kind of an Obama-type Democrat,” Levin said. “Which, I’m still trying to figure out what that is exactly.”

On Vito Lopez and “stuff”: “On the policy stuff, we’re very much on the same page most of the time,” Levin said. “He’s sought my counsel on a lot of stuff and I think he’s always respected my opinion about stuff.”

Continuing on the theme of independence: “As a City Council member, I think that relationship would continue, where he respects if I have a dissenting opinion from his,” Levin said. “I’ll be my own guy.”

Word of advice: Don’t dissent too much, Steve, or you’ll end up like Diana Reyna.