A Walking Anomaly

David Clem

David Clem is a walking anomaly. He's also an incumbent city councilor. The independents say he's a liberal, Brattle St. type; the Cambridge Convention people call him a turncoat, a man who betrayed those who supported them in 1975 in favor of the anti-rent control interests.

Clem claims he is neither.

Whether voters will buy his position that it's time to change the structure of Cambridge politics and elect someone who defies stereotyping will depend on whether his campaign organization--complete with dozens of "Clem Corps" volunteers--can sell Clem himself and his maverick style.

Clem, who received the support of the Cambridge Convention in 1975, says that he is not abandoning progressive politics in striking out on his own, but only freeing himself from the slate's restrictions. His hands, he says, were tied by being associated so closely with CC '75. Clem feels it inhibited his ability to form coalitions on the council and limited his overall flexibility in dealing with the city's problems.

While objecting to the "loyalty oath" aspects of running with the slate, he stresses that ideologically he differs little from his former CC cohorts, having parted with them on less than a dozen votes in two years on the Council.

Where he does disagree with the other liberals is the proposed controls on condominiums, which he calls irresponsible. He says the issue is not a significant one because so few conversions take place and those that do aren't so damaging anyway.

Clem, the only incumbent who works full-time at the council, also thinks rent control has been blown out of proportion. He supports it in principle, but favors what he calls "conditional decontrol" of owner-occupied four, five and six family apartments (assuming owner participation in non-profit home improvement programs and certification that rent increases will not take rents out of the middle income range).

This, along with other indications that he is straying from CC's rigidly anti-rent control stand has caused a good deal of bitterness in liberal circles. While a number of liberals--Harvard Law School professors James Vorenberg and Charles R. Nesson to anme two--have endorsed him, others go so far as to charge Clem has struck a "Faustian pact" with conservatives who lack concern for the poor.

That makes Clem angry. He cites his many years of work helping rehabilitate Cambridge housing stock as evidence of his committment to addressing low-income housing problems. And his initiatives on other liberal issues--gay rights, affirmative action and down-zoning for instance--clearly distinguish him from the other incumbents not backed by CC.

If Clem's intensive campaigning pays off--if he is successful in convincing liberals to stray from the state and others in Cambridge to vote for someone they normally wouldn't--the future of Cambridge politics will be very different indeed.