Alice Wolf Discusses Campaigning Views

Stating that "the most important thing is to become involved in your community," former Cambridge mayor Alice K. Wolf discussed her views on campaigning before an audience of about 25 yesterday at the Institute of Politics.

Now locked in a heated campaign for state representative, Wolf said she has been forced to overhaul her campaign strategies as a result of the different voting system employed in state elections.

In her battle against Anthony D. Galluccio for state representative, Wolf is competing for a majority of the electorate.

Previously in her nine straight successful races for Cambridge City Council and the Cambridge School Committee, Wolf campaigned under the proportional system, where candidates need just 10 percent of the popular vote to be elected.

The campaigning style best suited to the city's system relies heavily on committed supporters, Wolf said.

She cited her liberal stance on issues such as child care and education as factors that boosted her support in city politics.

"I believe in supporting the people who most need support--senior citizens, children and poor people," Wolf said.

In her campaign for the State House, Wolf said she will need a majority in the district, forcing her to try to broaden her base of support.

Wolf also discussed the grass-roots nature of her campaigns, telling of her sojourns door-to-door at supermarkets and in subway stations.

Wolf cited former State House Speaker and Cambridge political legend Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill, who once said that "all politics is local."

The second of only three female mayors of Cambridge, including current Mayor Sheila T. Russell, Wolf said that women are still a drastic minority in Massachusetts government.

Although her gender has occasionally been an advantage, Wolf said it has often made her political career more difficult.

She did say that the situation has been changing over time, however.

Wolf also chronicled the many changes in Cambridge's history, referring to a precinct map as she outlined the city's new composition of population and industry.

Reminding the primarily out-of-state audience that Cambridge "is a very different city from the quarter-mile around Harvard Square," she listed the many immigrant groups now living in the city, including Portuguese, Haitians, Latinos and South East Asians.

Wolf also discussed the advent of knowledge-based industries such as biotechnology to the area after the demise of manufacturing plants around Central Square in the 1950s and 1960s.

The end of Wolf's talk was reserved for answering questions.