Counting Change in Cambridge

They come in pink, yellow, white and blue, and they're 18 inches long. And for a week now, the ballots are all that have mattered in Cambridge politics.

Every ballot, every number, has a history--many snarled in the arcane twists of Cambridge ethnic, liberal and regional politics. But added together, they show patterns that prove the similarity of a lot of the individual histories. The numbers trace the outline of electoral stability, eroding and shifting around the edges like an island in mid-river.

Citizens will find few new faces in this season's line-up. Only councilor-elect David Sullivan and School Committee member Henrietta Attles will be brand new to their jobs when they take office in January. Politically, too, the shifts were small. Cambridge Civic Association (CCA) liberals and independent conservatives are still split four-four on the city council, with Alfred E. Vellucci--30 years a city official and an independent liberal--holding the balance of power and perhaps the keys to the mayor's office. The split means rent control will continue in Cambridge for another two years, the city will keep trying to limit condominium conversions, and James Leo Sullivan will stay in place as city manager.

This year was different, though, in one respect--the emergence of the student vote. College students have been eligible to vote in the past three Cambridge elections, a privilege only a few have ever exercised. But students registering for classes this fall found they could also register to vote in Cambridge--even if they hadn't paid their term bills. Many went ahead and registered. After all, "students will sign anything. They just won't take the time to vote," as conservative councilor Walter Sullivan once pointed out.

Student groups and candidates went on the offensive, trying to pull in votes before students could forget about city politics. The Harvard-Radcliffe Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC) and the Southern Africa Solidarity Committee(SASC) endorsed David Sullivan, who in turn toured most dorms here in search of voters. Some of the students Sullivan met were informed, a few well enough to argue the Ec 10 line against rent control. Some were amazed to learn that they could even vote--like the Mather House resident who insisted he wasn't on the list. "I registered as a freshman, but not since," he said, skeptical until Sullivan explained that voter registration is permanent.

But whatever they knew or didn't know, Harvard students turned out to vote in numbers 50 per cent higher that ever before.

And because Sullivan made the only strong overtures to students, he won their votes overwhelmingly. In Ward 6, percinct 3, the tenant's-rights activist picked up 197 votes, 150 more than his nearest competitor.

Because of the four-year student turnover, candidates must recruit the Harvard voter for every election. Sullivan's impressive vote total proves the campaigning is worth it, though. Two years from now, halls and entryways should be littered with literature and bustling with candidates, courting student voters for the first time ever. The increase in campaigning will also make the Harvard voter more sophisticated; chances are no one will be able to engineer a win the size of Sullivan's in future elections. "Politicians will have to start paying attention to the demands of students." David Sullivan said as he watched the totals come in from the Harvard precincts.

Liberals, especially Sullivan, who led the CCA ticket and became the first progressive councilor ever to top the first-ballot quota necessary for election, also benefitted from a strong tenant vote.

Sensing that rent control, recently scrapped next door in Somerville, was in trouble, and motivated by the well-financed campaigns of Sullivan and Francis Duehay '56, tenants, especially in mid-Cambridge, flocked to the polls. "David Sullivan pulled 700 brand-new votes out of the apartment buildings," School Committee member Glenn Koocher '71 said last week.

The new votes, both from tenants and students, followed closely the CCA and Rent Control Task Force slates. Cambridge's complex proportional representation system makes it easy to guage slate loyalty. Under this system, surplus votes and votes for candidates eliminated from the race are redistributed to the second-choice candidates. Among Sullivan's surplus, 96 per cent went to other supporters of rent control, an astonishingly high percentage.

Still, even with record turnouts and consistent loyalty from their supporters, city liberals were able to get only four of the nine council seats. Forced to rely for two more years on Vellucci for a fifth progressive vote, they were none too happy last week.

Part of the problem is the CCA name. Associated since its beginning with the Brattle St. wealthy, the CCA label spells death for candidates in parts of Cambridge, especially the Italian East Cambridge. It is no surprise that Duehay and David Sullivan, who ran hard campaigns on their own, building up networks of voters and volunteers loyal personally to them, led the liberal pack.

City independents, the traditional foes of rent control, did what they had to do to keep their council edge--just barely. Walter Sullivan, as usual, led all comers in the vote, but his margin slipped--he only beat his liberal namesake David by 26 votes. Relying on his strong personal network, Walter Sullivan, an assistant clerk of courts whose father served as a councilor at the tail end of the Depression and who is entering his 13th term on the board, will keep his seat as long as he wants it--more than can be said for most of his independent mates.

Cambridge Mayor Thomas W. Danehy, nephew of former councilor John D. Lynch, also ran a strong campaign. He had to--many feared the revelation that he hadn't paid his property taxes for a recent year might cost his seat. But, in what one observer called the "phenomenon of the embattled independent," his North Cambridge constituency rallied behind him.

Kevin Crane '73, heir to the Edward Crane '37 political legend, ran just well enough across the city to insure his return to the council. He may not be building a constituency, but there are just enough voters in the city who recognize his name.

Like Crane, Leonard Russell, who has run for council seven times (twice successfully) had just enough friends. It isn't his moderate stand on the issues that wins Russell most of his support. Instead, voters chose him because he's friendly, well-kown, and has lots of connections when it comes to finding city jobs for his backers.

For the rest of the independents, it was a disastrous outing. Incumbent Lawrence A. Frisoli lost badly, finishing 13th in the original count. Frisoli tried to build an electoral base on non-existent soil--disenchanted condo owners. They either don't exist or didn't turn out to vote. Leaders of the Concerned Cambridge Citizens (CCC), a group that published no stands on issues but whose candidates were mostly opposed to rent control, found the same hard fact--the traditional city voting blocs, be they liberal or ethnic, are very hard to penetrate. The only candidates useful as barometers of the CCC's effectiveness are Douglas Okun and David Agee. They relied on the CCC to build a political foundation for them. Despite fairly active campaigns, the pair finished 17th and 19th in the 23-man field. The only bright spot in the CCC showing was the strong slate identity--almost all Okun and Agee votes transferred to other anti-rent control candidates.

The CCC, roundly denounced by liberals as an attempt to confuse CCA voters, was just one cloud in the campaign. The Cambridge Homeowners and Taxpayers (CHT), another new group largely discredited as a political force by their candidate Frisoli's poor showing, mailed condo owneres a letter listing the tax assessement on the homes of some "anti-condo" councilors. And the usual number of nasty rumors and charges circulated the city. Perhaps the most widely-voiced and least effective concerned David Sullivan. "Psssst," people would say, elbowing your ribs. "Did you know his name is really Solomon?" It isn't, at least according to his birth certificate. But none of the charges seemed to have had much effect on traditional voting patterns.

Unchanging candidates tend to veil some changes in liberal politics. David Sullivan's overwhelming vote is a sign that the issue (rent control) and the candidate (well-financed and an energetic campaigner) may be as important as the backing of the traditional liberal-power-broker (the CCA).

Among the independents, personal fiefdoms continue, but with total votes down in almost every case, the barbarians are at the door. The effort among some independents to unite in the CCC was no real salve to their political wounds. And as Frisoli, who had the support of the old-line Frisoli-DiGuglielmo political clan proved, it is very, very difficult to carve out a new personal base.

Cambridge politics may change more slowly than the city. But in two years, the ballots will be lying in piles around the elementary school gym again, and once more they'll tell a story of the city's history, of its divisions and unities, and perhaps, most murkily, of its future.