TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2002 -- Finally primary day is here. I arrived at my polling place, the Alexander Hamilton School in Brighton, to find exactly what I find every non-presidential election year -- nothing. Oh sure. There were a few " activists " holding signs. But the scene inside the school was sleepy to be sure.

Between 7 and 9 a.m. are generally the high traffic hours, when people vote just before they go to work. My brief questioning of those at the polling place suggested that I hadn’t gotten there during some momentary lull. Things had been quiet all morning. If what I observed in my polling place translates statewide -- which I’m not sure of -- this might be the low-turnout election Secretary William Galvin has been forecasting. Of course, I live in a precinct laden with students, mostly from Boston College, but the polling place includes most of Ward 21. You’d expect at least some action in an area with a hot district race -- state representative Brian Golden versus David Friedman -- and a former senator running for statewide office, Warren Tolman.

One comment I have heard from voters about this year’s primary is they have been put off by the high number of candidates: Tolman, former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, Treasurer Shannon O’Brien, and Senate President Tom Birmingham. It would have been interesting this year if a pre-primary election could have been held along the city model. If no candidate won a majority of Democratic voters, then the first and second place candidates would run against each other. (This is the way the mayoral race works in New York.) Given that there are two candidates who are current office holders, O’Brien and Birmingham, and two wrestling for the reform mantle, the result of this initial election may have been one current office holder and one presumed reformer. Then on the real primary day you’d have a clear contest over which direction the Democratic Party in Massachusetts was headed. Right now we don’t know how this idea would have worked out. But when real results come in later tonight and tomorrow, it will be something else to think about.