On the ropes

Cambridge state rep Alvin Thompson faces a tough fight in the 28th Middlesex District from three Democratic challengers -- two of whom are young enough to be his kids

Cambridge by Jason Gay

These aren't the easiest days for state rep Alvin Thompson. The five-term incumbent, a product of Cambridge's progressive old school, has three Democratic challengers eager to sweep him out of office on September 15. He's trying to extinguish a controversy over his attempted eviction of a tenant from his Central Square home. And, most of all, the 59-year-old rep is trying to fight the perception in the 28th Middlesex District that he's washed up. "There is high-level voter dissatisfaction with Alvin Thompson," says one of his challengers, Jarrett Barrios.

Hearing these and other criticisms, you half expect to see buzzards circling over Thompson's modest two-unit house on Green Street. But on a recent afternoon, Cambridge's senior state rep is in a fighting mood. Taking a seat behind a long table cluttered with stacks of newspapers, bills, and campaign literature, Thompson defends his State House career, mostly in exclamation points, between bites of a wrap sandwich. Throughout a two-hour interview, he punctuates his comments with fists on the table so many times that I begin to feel as though I'm sitting in the principal's office.

"These people are going around talking about what I haven't done!" Thompson says during one particularly testy moment. "I ask you: what have they done?!"

Thompson believes his 10 years' experience gives him an overwhelming advantage over his competition in the 28th District, which stretches from the east side of Harvard Square through Central Square and out to the border of East Cambridge. "The man on the job is the man for the job," cheers Thompson's campaign literature. "I've been through the apprenticeship period [in the State House]. I'm now a surgeon," he says. "There's no aspect of state government where I can't push a button and get things done."

Still, there is a lingering sentiment in Cambridge that Thompson's star is fading, and people are lining up to show him the door. In addition to the 29-year-old Barrios, there is Dennis Benzan, a 26-year-old who finished 900 votes behind Thompson when he ran as an independent in 1996, and David Hoicka, an attorney and long-time tenants' advocate who also tried to oust Thompson two years ago. There is also one Republican candidate, Ron Potvin.

Of the challengers, Barrios and Benzan are considered to have the best shot. Barrios, a Florida native who came to Cambridge to attend Harvard, already possesses a formidable political pedigree: Harvard, Georgetown Law, and a choice gig at Boston's Hill and Barlow. Barrios's connections have paid some dividends -- he's raised the most money in the field, with $45,000 -- but the candidate prefers to emphasize the grassroots experience he's gained through years of community activism, particularly on affordable-housing and gay and lesbian issues.

Barrios, who claims to have personally met 3000 registered voters in the 28th District, has rung more doorbells than an Amway salesman in the past four months. It's near-impossible these days to drive down Mass Ave without encountering a flock of Barrios-ites gripping the candidate's green-and-white signs. "The cornerstone of our field plan is direct contact," Barrios says.

But Benzan, who served as an aide to congressmen José Serrano of New York and Dale Kildee of Michigan and former Cambridge mayor Kenneth Reeves, is also using a homespun approach, tapping neighborhood pals and allies from his previous State House bid. Benzan and his 25-year-old campaign manager, Ahsha Safai, a classmate from Rindge and Latin High School, are the Damon and Affleck of Cambridge politics; what they lack in polish and dough, they make up for with local know-how and pluck. Benzan's 1996 showing was an impressive surprise, though some observers suggest it was mostly a testament to Thompson's waning support.

Benzan says it was just a start. "I'm more confident this time," he says. "I'm mentally prepared."

Both Benzan and Barrios are Latinos (Benzan is of Dominican descent; Barrios's grandparents immigrated from Cuba), and if either succeeds in getting to Beacon Hill, he will be only the second Latino representative in state history. Though both candidates figure to perform well among Latino voters, neither can count on that electorate as a launching pad: by Barrios's estimate, Latinos make up only 4 percent of the 28th's registered voters.

Barrios says the significance of a Latino victory in the 28th will lie in providing the groundwork for future Latino candidates. Though Latinos are the fastest-growing ethnic group in the state, Barrios believes the community's political network is severely lacking. "The political skills we have learned on this campaign are the beginnings of the necessary infrastructure," he says.

Neither candidate, however, spends much time touting his ethnicity. Identity politics can only go so far in the 28th, an eclectic stew of racial and socioeconomic groups living in everything from housing projects and triple-deckers to luxury condominiums overlooking the Charles River.

The driving issue in this election figures to be the fate of the neighborhood itself -- especially when it comes to affordable housing. Post-rent control Cambridge is a city in transformation: since rent control was eliminated in 1995, thousands of residents have left the city in search of more-affordable places to live. They have in large part been replaced by more-affluent renters who can afford to pay higher prices. The new residents and businesses have triggered fears about gentrification; ground zero for this discussion is Central Square, where a strip of small mom-and-pop businesses will soon be leveled for a major business/luxury housing megaplex.

"This is not an issue that affects one particular ethnic group," says Benzan. "It's an issue of class."

The candidates all support affordable housing, but they differ slightly on their ideas for preserving and expanding it. Benzan, who grew up in affordable housing, wants to push for more homeownership opportunities. Barrios, who cowrote a Cambridge affordable-housing ordinance, wants incentives for groups that are preserving or creating affordable units. Thompson touts his work to secure state funding for a slew of housing agencies in the 28th District.

But it is Hoicka, the lawyer and tenants' advocate, who may have the most close-up perspective on the housing issue. For years, Hoicka has represented low-income Cantabrigians in landlord disputes, including eviction proceedings. Earlier this year, Hoicka took perhaps his most controversial client: Elisebeth Loder, a disabled, low-income tenant of Thompson's whom the representative has been trying to evict since April 1997.

Like most landlord-tenant disputes, this story has two sides. Loder, citing inspection records, contends that Thompson has failed to maintain the apartment properly; Thompson argues that Loder has been a bad tenant and that his case is being unfairly sensationalized. But there's little question that the dispute, made public in a page-one Cambridge Chronicle story on August 6, was devoured like a hunk of red meat in a city that views housing battles as heavyweight title fights. It also gave a nice boost to Hoicka, a long-time local rabble-rouser who is widely seen as the fourth-place candidate in this race.

Hoicka says he tried to keep the Loder case out of the press but finally went public when Thompson didn't respond to his client. "He could have avoided this with one phone call," Hoicka says. "It doesn't take a lot of common sense to know that you don't evict a disabled woman on SSI." (As for Thompson's charge that the case is politically motivated, Hoicka says: "I do this kind of thing for lots of people, and most of the time it doesn't get me in the papers.")

It's doubtful that Hoicka's advocacy will add up to a primary victory; the attorney is running a decidedly low-watt campaign, figuring to spend about $10,000 of mostly his own money. But it may be a body blow to Thompson, who needs all the support he can muster for this primary fight. Says Barrios: "The defining issue in any race against an incumbent has to be the incumbent."

Indeed, the eviction dispute couldn't have come at a worse time for Thompson, who is trying to promote his recent Beacon Hill accomplishments. The relatively close victory in the 1996 election appears to have lit a small fire under Thompson, who had been dogged by charges of laziness and poor voting attendance in the past. By comparison, he has been much more active this term, cosponsoring dozens of bills and weighing in with a spiffy 98.7 percent attendance at State House votes.

Though Thompson's campaign has been much less visible than those of Barrios and Benzan, the incumbent doesn't feel the need to match the competition yard sign for yard sign. After all, he can offer voters the one thing his competitors can't: State House experience. "This isn't a job that you all of a sudden decide you want to do," Thompson says. "This is a job [earned] by working over the years."

Still, Thompson -- a long-time local NAACP leader who cut his political teeth in the struggles against urban renewal in the 1950s and '60s -- has to wonder whether he's falling out of fashion in the ever-changing 28th District. While the pro-choice, anti-death penalty incumbent has always been a reliable liberal unafraid to take an unpopular position (he once suggested shaving 10 days off the sentences of prisoners for every pint of blood they donated), Thompson must combat a new generation of challengers who claim his best days are behind him.

"He's a good person," says Benzan, who recalls talking politics with Thompson more than once on train rides back from Washington, DC. "I'd never try to take that away from him. But a lot of times, when you're an established politician, you get comfortable."

There's a theory that Thompson might sneak back in again: that Barrios, Benzan, and Hoicka will cancel each other out, allowing the incumbent to emerge victorious. (Barrios and Benzan both dispute this, each asserting that he has established an independent base of support.) There is the possibility that the 28th electorate, bombarded by the hyperactive field of newcomers in the Eighth Congressional District race, may cling to a familiar face like Thompson's in a local campaign. If that happens, an old Cambridge pol will have pulled it off again.

"I feel confident," Thompson says. "I feel like a winner."

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