EVEN BEFORE Mayor Martin O'Malley took the podium at the Radisson Plaza yesterday, it was clear that no triumphant declarations about the governorship would issue forth from this place.

There were no green and white O'Malley banners hanging from the walls. No cheering knots of flunkies in straw boaters shouting "Go, Martin, Go!" Not enough big shots walking around the old joint - the former Lord Baltimore Hotel - to usher in a new political era in style.

The second-floor ballroom felt musty and tired, too. It had the feel of a swell place to hold a baseball card show or a one-day Star Trek convention or perhaps a juggling exhibition by a man on a unicycle, his small dog in tow, a tiny tambourine attached to its collar.

But it was not the kind of bright, cheery place from which you smile and pump your fists and announce to a cheering, beered-up throng that there is no stopping you now, that instead of working for some of the people of this great state, you want to work for all of them.

Sure enough, at a little after noon, the mayor of Baltimore kissed his wife and stepped to the microphone, looking handsome and composed, and more like a Kennedy than any other politician in the country, never mind in this state.

Wearing a dark suit, pale blue shirt and red tie, Martin O'Malley stared into the hot, white TV lights and calmly said what we all knew by then, which is that he would not run for governor against the real Kennedy in this race, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.

Sometimes, though, you wonder about this politician, a woman who seems so small and terrified working the crowds, who seems to need a dictionary, and possibly a thesaurus, too, to deliver an impromptu remark to any audience of more than five people.

I keep hearing she's a nice woman. I keep hearing she's intelligent and focused and warm when you get to know her, and not nearly the jittery thing she seems in those sound bites and Flower Mart appearances.

And I hope that's the case. Because she does not seem real sharp on her feet right now, which should scare every thinking citizen in this state, seeing as how she's now the odds-on favorite to be your next governor.

Robert Ehrlich, the Republican candidate for governor, sounds like Clarence Darrow or William Jennings Bryan compared to Townsend.

So, at least for now, we will be spared the blood sport of watching O'Malley take apart KKT on the nightly news and the various forums in which the two would have found themselves debating, a prospect that no doubt had Townsend hyperventilating and now should have her lighting candles in churches for the next 10 years.

In his remarks at the Radisson, O'Malley spoke about how he believed the city had moved beyond the divisions of race and class since his election, of the strides it had made in reducing violent crime and drug-related emergency room admissions, how job growth was up and so was the average sales price of new homes.

And, against this backdrop, he said, had come this "vacuum of leadership in the state Democratic Party, this year's race for governor, and the most difficult political decision of my life."

As he spoke, my thoughts drifted back to the last time I saw O'Malley speak, at the funeral last week for his dear friend, Paul Levin, a good man and the best Jewish piper I have ever heard play in an Irish rock band.

This was at the Sol Levinson & Brothers funeral home on Reisterstown Road, in front of a standing-room-only crowd of mourners that had tied up traffic so badly you thought the president's motorcade was coming through.

When it came time for him to speak, O'Malley told this wonderful story, full of blarney, about how the naming of O'Malley's March had been a constant source of tension between him and Levin.

"Originally," said O'Malley, "we were going to call the band Schwartz, Levin & O'Malley. Except it sounded like a law firm."

It was the perfect anecdote to lance some of the grief from the room. But soon he had tears in his eyes as he spoke of Levin's strength and grace and courage on his deathbed, "a Jewish boy trapped in a Celtic spirit."

At times, O'Malley would choke up and pause, and at these times you heard nothing else in the room, nothing but this incredible silence, so riveted was everyone by his words.

As I sat off to one side of this huge crowd and listened, I thought: That poor Townsend, she has no idea how ugly it could get if she ever debates this guy.

Now, she worries about it no longer. And Martin O'Malley goes back to the business of running this city, and Townsend and Ehrlich slug it out for governor. And God help us if she can't better articulate her vision for this state and wins anyway.

"There is no tougher fight, and no more noble cause, than the turnaround of a great American city," O'Malley said toward the end of his little speech.

Then he let the audience in on a little secret: That baby he and Katie Curran O'Malley are expecting? It's a boy. This got the biggest hand of the day, which is as it should be, for if the end of the mayor's dream could not be celebrated, the prospect of a new son surely could.

When he was finished, Martin O'Malley looked like a man who was absolutely content with the way the day had turned out. He walked briskly to a side door of the ballroom and into a hallway, where he was swallowed by an entourage of beefy guys in gray suits with earphones.

A few reporters tried to get a word with him, but one of his flacks held up his arms and said: "I don't think he'll be saying anything more about this."

And, really, what else was there to say?