The Crayola candidate

Part 3

Campaign Trail by Jason Gay

But the flake faces a tough battle in an old-school political town, one that doesn't traditionally elect zany, antiestablishment candidates. Part of the problem is the election system itself. All of Cambridge's elected officers are at-large candidates -- there are no voting districts, the way there are in Boston -- and the city has proportional representation, meaning that voters rank up to nine ballot selections, and the top nine finishers secure the council slots. It's an odd system, one that encourages candidates to court demographic rather than geographic constituencies -- for example, elderly voters rather than specific neighborhoods. It also makes campaigning very complicated, especially for political neophytes like MacKinnon.

"It's very difficult," says Denise Jillson, executive director of the Alliance for Change, a Cambridge political interest group. "Even though we're a city of some 90,000 people, we're very much a small town. You have to prove yourself, attending the various neighborhood groups, school committee meetings, and city council meetings. It's very hard for someone to come right in off the sidewalk."

What also makes it tough for outsiders is the power of Jillson's Alliance and the city's other political group, the 52-year-old Cambridge Civic Association (CCA). The CCA is viewed as the more liberal, progressive organization, whereas the Alliance is seen as moderate-conservative; both groups spend a long time developing political platforms and interviewing potential candidates for city council and school committee. Their official nominations, known as "slates," are considered quite influential on election day.

This year, the CCA and the Alliance have nominated eight city council candidates between them, and only one is a newcomer. The CCA has backed incumbents Kathy Born, Henrietta Davis, Frank Duehay, and Katherine Triantafillou. The Alliance has endorsed incumbents Anthony Galluccio, Sheila Russell, and Michael Sullivan, and one outside candidate, Donald Harding, an African-American who is well known in the youth sports community. Even the two incumbents without slate endorsements should prevail on November 4. Councilor Tim Toomey is expected to perform well thanks to his working-class East Cambridge base; so is the ever-popular Ken Reeves, who topped the 1995 ballot without any slate backing.

The consensus, in fact, is that all nine incumbents are shoo-ins; speculation is now focusing on who will become Cambridge's next mayor when the council chooses one of its members for the office after the first of the year. (Russell is the current mayor, but Duehay is expected to succeed her in 1998.) So without an upset brewing, residents aren't gearing up for the ballots, and voter turnout, which was 46 percent in 1995, may drop significantly.

CCA president Geneva Malenfant ascribes lack of interest in the city council race to a mixture of apathy, acceptance, and frustration. "One theory is that people are totally fed up, because city government has become so awful that they are disgusted," Malenfant says. "But there are others who feel totally the opposite, that people are pretty satisfied with how things are."

The Alliance's Jillson falls into the latter category. Residents aren't fussing over politics in Cambridge because they're not angry, she says. The local economy is good, property values are up, and most people agree that the perpetual city battle over rent control (eliminated in 1995) is over. "I think people are comfortable with where we're at," Jillson says.

But can Cambridge afford to be comfortable? Randy Fenstermacher, a very liberal CCA member, thinks that voter complacency is preventing important debates from reaching City Hall. Outside forces -- particularly developers, landlords, and the business community -- want to preserve the status quo so issues like rent control won't be dragged up for discussion again, he says.

"There are an awful lot of people who don't want this to be a race," Fenstermacher warns. "There are entrenched interests who feel the incumbents are just fine, and we should leave them as they may be."

Still, Fenstermacher acknowledges that nonincumbent candidates face a rough race. Of the 10 on the ticket, only a few are given a chance. Fenstermacher is campaigning for Bill Cunningham, a long-time housing activist running on a rent-control ticket. There's Harding, the Alliance pick. And a few diehards are pulling for Robert Winters, a Harvard mathematics professor and environmentalist who has competed in past council elections.

And then there's MacKinnon, standing in the wings with his paintbrushes and easels. But interesting ideas alone won't get you elected nowadays, says the CCA's Malenfant.

"There was a time back in the 1970s when candidates simply had to say, `Peace, freedom, and end the Vietnam War' and that was it," Malenfant says. "But I think the standards are much tougher now."

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Jason Gay can be reached at jgay[a]phx.com.