It is barely possible that some Harvard students do not realize that a municipal election campaign is in full swing. The men and women who are running, however, are every day more aware that they are in a fight.

With 15 positions at stake and 65 candidates on the ballot it would seem to be anybody's race. Cambridge politicians, though, are almost perfectly divisible into four groups: the reformers, the longtime ins, the perennial outs, and the hardy newcomers.

Of these classifications the ins are, in most instances, fairly sure of re-election; the reformers will elect some of their slate; and the perennials and the newcomers are generally doomed to oblivion, this year at least.

The ins in the 1957 battle are headed by Mayor Edward J. Sullivan, who proclaims himself as the voters' "Around-the-Clock-Servant," humane, sincere, trustworthy, faithful, aggressive, honest, and capable. Sullivan predicted that he will "top the ticket," and that his group of so-called "independents" will keep control of both the City Council and the School Committee. In his clique are Al Vellucci and John Lynch, both incumbents on the City Council, Anthony Galluccio, John Briston Sullivan, and James Fitzgerald, School Committee members up for re-election. Joseph Maynard, a former School Committeman who automatically and unfailingly followed the Mayor's lead, is now trying for the City Council.

The reformers, all endorsed by the Cambridge Civic Association, are led by former Mayor Joseph DeGuglielmo '29 and two-term School Committeeman Judson T. Shaplin '42, associate dean of the Harvard School of Education. Other CCA incumbents are Mrs. Pearl K. Wise and former Mayor Edward Crane '35 on the City Council, and Mrs. Catherine Ogden on the School Committee. The CCA, however, has endorsed 13 others, all comparative newcomers to city politics, with the exception of Robert G. Conley, co-ordinator of two Stevenson campaigns, and William Galgay, former 3-term School Committee member.

There are two other incumbents running for the City Council--Charles A. Watson and Thomas McNamara--both of whom are real independents, in that they are neither tied to the Mayor nor to the CCA. Assuming that the CCA does not elect a majority of the Council, there is a good chance that either Watson or McNamara will receive the backing of the CCA minority for the mayoralty.

Among the perennials, Benedict Fitzgerald '08 is probably the hardiest. Most people have lost count of his unsuccessful runs for office. He is running for City Council, but his only chance for victory is through a sympathy vote or a case of mistaken identity, in which voters thought he was the Mayor's crony, James Fitzgerald. On the CCA side, there are three former perennials parading behind the standard of respectability. Gaetan Aiello and Robert Horan, School Committee candidates, are at least one-time losers, and Witold Pladziewicz, owner of an East Cambridge meat market and a City Council candidate, shares the same stigma.

One perennial and an independent who is out of action for this campaign is Edward Martin, a columnist for the Cambridge-Somerville edition of the Record-American. Some miss him.

Newcomers Varied

Within the group of newcomers George E. Squires stands out for the inaudibility of his speech. Squires has a record of helping retired people and is fighting for a recreation center for them and a similar center for potential juvenile delinquents. Another newcomer, Andrew Trodden is given a better than average chance for the City Council. His record seems to be mainly one of police and legal work, but he assures prospective supporters that he is a family man and a graduate of Rindge Tech, both of which are prized virtues in a Cambridge campaign.

Anthony Gargiulo, running for the School Committee, has led a double life as a school teacher and an attorney. He is advocating better teachers, better schools, and better public relations for the school system, which, he claims, has suffered bad publicity from the school appointments fight and from inaccurate charges that the teaching is of a low grade. Gargiulo, however, declines to take a position on the school appointments issue--the hottest in the campaign.

An independent aspirant to the City Council, John Cremens is concentrating much of his effort on securing a good many Number 1 votes in Ward 10, his home ground. He wants to be elected, he says, so that Ward 10 will have some representation on the Council, where its fate is decided.

In reality, though, few of the unknowns stand much of a chance in the November 5 election. The battle this fall is strangely enough, a more or less ideological one, and the battle lines were drawn almost a year ago. This factor effectively places the majority of the candidates on the sidelines.

The battle revolves around 17 highly publicized appointments made last December by the School Committee. Five members of the group, headed by Mayor Sullivan, suspended the rules and proceeded to make what their CCA opponents term appointments based on "petty political friendship, personal friendship, or relationship." The CCA charges that the "independents," among whom was Anthony Galluccio, a CCA-endorsed candidate now running wthout CCA support, made the appointments without the legally required approval of the Superintendent of Schools and without submitting the candidates to competitive examinations.

The Sullivanites counter that the CCA has ignored and refused to debate the qualifications of the 17 "promoted" to school system jobs. James Fitzgerald, one of the independents, says that no objections were raised to the people as individuals and none have been raised; therefore, there is no reason to believe that they will perform badly in their jobs.