According to gay activist and Lavender Alliance member Arthur S. Lipkin '68, "the Elaine Noble candidacy is a clever if somewhat cynical ploy on the part of the independents to whittle away at the progressive majority."

Cavellini says that the Noble candidacy "is very perplexing to me."

"Part of it is the fact that no one's seen her in Cambridge for 10 years," he says.

According to Dixon, Noble faces the same problem confronting all fist-time City Council candidates: everyone's already promised away their No. 1 votes. He says he can't imagine her getting more than 500 or 600 No.1 votes, not nearly enough to win a council seat.

Another factor that complicates election outcome predictions is that it is not clear which incumbents are vulnerable.

Toomey, who is serving his first term on the council, is in a somewhat awkward position because he doesn't vote consistently as an Independent, but he also doesn't associate himself with the CCA.

According to Daniel E. Geer Jr., president of Cambridge Citizens for Liveable Neighborhoods, Russell and Independent Councillor William H. Walsh could stand to lose their seats if not his year then in a future election, because of Russell's apparent passivity and Walsh's sometimes allegedly shady business dealings.

But mere speculation will be superfluous after tomorrow, when Cambridge's masses will hit the polls and send their bi-annual message to City Hall, ending, for a while, the grandstanding at City Council.