Vote for Bachrach

THE MAJORITY OPINION's enthusiasm for State Sen. George Bachrach's (D-Watertown) smooth rhetoric and flashy style is misguided. To anyone else on the outside looking in at the race for the Eighth Congressional District seat, the four front-runners look like four wheels on the same car.

All are self-proclaimed liberals and hold politically similar views. But one candidate stands out as the most experienced, the most thoughtful and the most likely to get things done in Congress.

James Roosevelt Jr. '68 can combine his extensive experience on the Democratic State and National Committees with his grass-roots community work here in Cambridge to do the most for this district. He understands the city's needs from his personal involvement to save area services ranging from hospitals to the Cambridge Public Library.

Roosevelt has run a low-key campaign against Joseph P. Kennedy II. The front-runner, Kennedy has one good deed--Citizens Energy Corporation--and one good name to his credit. But he lacks the experience and the know-how to get anything accomplished.

A close second in the polls is Bachrach, a fiery orator. His fervent speeches may spice up the Congressional Record and win him kudos from local high school debate coaches, but they won't win anything for Cambridge.

Falling into third place is Melvin King, whose total community involvement is worthy of great respect and praise. But King lacks the pragmatism that is needed to make a dent in Congress. His utopian vision is not a realistic one for America of the late 1980s.

Roosevelt favors immediate and comprehensive sanctions against South Africa, divestment of Harvard's $416 million of investments in the apartheid state and self-determination for the countries in Central America. Roosevelt also refused to take contributions from political action committees, a move Bachrach followed, Kennedy hedged on, and King rebuffed.

Roosevelt calls himself a pragmatic liberal. His progressive stance on arms control and a nuclear freeze is not burdened by a doctrinaire and impractical refusal to fund all weapons systems. Such a compromising congressman is what is needed in Washington, not a representative who answers the right questions to get the right activist groups to back him and then caves in to the realities of Capitol Hill.

Roosevelt is honest. He is attuned to the political realities in Congress. And he feels the voters deserve to know just how he would really stand in the capital.

Roosevelt wants a position on the Energy and Commerce Committee or the Science and Technology Committee, where he can apply his expertise in the field of health care and try to directly service his constituents' needs.

The voters of the Eighth Congressional District must take this opportunity to dig beneath the rhetoric of political candidates and elect Roosevelt.