But his prospects for rounding up the extra votes look promising. A recent UMass poll showed that the Lowell congressman had a 14-point lead over Governor Jane Swift in a gubernatorial match-up; that popularity would presumably extend to parts of the reconfigured district he'll be courting in the congressional election. Meehan also has money: for such an outspoken advocate of campaign-finance reform, the congressman has prospered under the current system. The latest fundraising information from the Federal Election Commission shows Meehan with a huge financial advantage over Tierney. Meehan had $2,086,886.67 in cash on hand as of June 30, to Tierney's $384,186.37. Meehan can use that money on television ads to familiarize Sixth District voters with his record.

Besides, several Merrimack Valley communities within Tierney's district are tied far more closely to Meehan's Lowell sphere of influence than to Tierney's North Shore base. Cities and towns such as Haverhill, Amesbury, and Merrimac gravitate culturally and politically more toward Lowell than Salem, where Tierney makes his home. "The DNA of many of the voters in places like Salisbury, Newburyport, Haverhill, and Amesbury can be traced back to the mills of Lowell and Lawrence," says Paul Sullivan, the political editor of the Lowell Sun.

William S. Wasserman, the former publisher of the North Shore Weeklies, a chain of community newspapers that's now part of the Community Newspaper Corporation, agrees that geography could work in Meehan's favor. "The people of the North Shore don't view Lowell and Lawrence as anything more than distant neighbors," says Wasserman. The new dynamic of the race will force Tierney to campaign strenuously in the Haverhill area, where voters may prefer a Merrimack Valley candidate like Meehan. Haverhill, a former mill city like Lawrence and Lowell, lies at the eastern edge of the Merrimack Valley. Wasserman recalls that when he tried to extend a North Shore publication into the area, the effort dropped like a stone: "We just couldn't make it work in the Merrimack Valley."

Nelson Benton, the editorial-page editor of the Salem Evening News, also says Tierney has his work cut out for him. "It's going to be the biggest challenge that Tierney's faced in some time," he says.

Benton notes, however, that at a recent rally to keep Lynn in the Sixth Congressional District (rather than moving it to the Eighth as proposed by Finneran), the mayor of Amesbury, Nicholas Costello, was one of the most vocal proponents. Support like that does not bode well for Meehan. In addition to wreaking havoc with Finneran's plan, keeping voter-rich Lynn in the Sixth would all but guarantee Tierney victory in a primary fight.

That's not the only advantage Tierney has, even if the contest would hardly blow Meehan out of the water. His greatest asset is the support of organized labor - always important in primaries, which generally have lower voter turnout. Labor has helped Tierney throughout his political career. In 1996, he was the beneficiary of a national AFL-CIO policy to retake the House. That year, John Sweeney, president of the AFL, devoted money and resources to elect Democrats. The labor movement successfully linked all Republicans - locally, Representative Peter Blute of Shrewsbury and Representative Peter Torkildsen of Danvers - to House Speaker Newt Gingrich. The AFL-CIO aired advertisements that tied Tierney's Republican opponent to cuts in Medicare. With labor's help, Tierney beat Torkildsen by 372 votes in 1996, and again in 1998 by 26,186. Meehan, on the other hand, ran in 1992 against Representative Chester Atkins, who was backed by labor. Meehan ended up defeating Atkins, then turned around in 1993 and voted in favor of the North American Free Trade Agreement - a measure more vigorously opposed by organized labor than any other in the past 20 years.