That endorsement process could be fiery, he says.

"I don't think it will be done easily whether it's an endorsement [of Noble] or a non-endorsement. It will not be non-contested," he says.

According to Cambridge attorney and Lavender Alliance member Katherine Triantafillou, "everyone was kind of surprised and startled when [Noble] anounced her candidacy, because she has not been active in Cambridge politics and gay groups."

Noble responds that her freshness on the city's political scene gives her an advantage. "The way Cambridge folks attack one another, I consider it an asset to be above the fray," she says. "The wrath of the voter that ushered in [Gov. William F. Weld '66] is still very much alive in Cambridge."

A Field of Incumbents

Not everyone sees it that way, however, and Noble's candidacy is raising eyebrows across the board.

Because of Cambridge's complicated proportional representation vote-casting system, incumbent candidates traditionally are very hard to beat. This year, the ten current councillors are running for reelection, and well-known School Committee member and former mayor Alfred E. Vellucci--in effect, a 10th incumbent--is also in the race.

According to CCA Executive Director Karen L. Corcoran, no one else stands much of a chance. Corcoran adds that "the biggest problem for all of us is getting people interested in the election and out to vote," and that the voters' easy out is to reelect the incumbents, whose names and accomplishments they recognize.

The bottom line may be that the void in Cambridge politics that Noble is campaigning to fill does not exist in the minds of most other politicians and voters.

Radical Change

Noble is advocating change: City Council charter reform, tighter controls on municipal offices, a gay liaison in City Hall, switching from at-large to district-by-district representation. But neither gay activists nor other politicians seem to think the city needs that kind of change.

Noble attributes that attitude to the complacency of the ruling class. "They don't want to shake the wagon because then their little goody train gets broken up," she says. "What my candidacy does is break up the ballgame."

To criticism from the year-old Lavender Alliance, Noble says, "I think it's always interesting when folks who've been here for one year or eight months ask me, who's lived here for 10 years, about a litmus test for what I've done for them."

The City's Gay Vote

Cambridge's gay vote has traditionally gone to incumbent mayor Alice K. Wolf and other CCA candidates, none of whom are openly homosexual. But the city's gay community, of which the Lavender Alliance is currently the only organized arm, does not seem to feel left out in the cold.