"I think the big political question is, `How isthe CCA going to define itself?'" she says. "Ithink there's a certain amount of disarray now andI think that could have major implications fortheir politics. They've got to get their acttogether."

Members and observers of the CCA say thegroup's task now is to redefine both its purposeand its ideology.

CCA President R. Philip Dowds admits the grouphad not communicated with the councillors it hadendorsed for the last election--Kathleen L. Born,Francis H. Duehay '55, Jonathan S. Myers andKatherine Triantafillou.

But Dowds says the CCA board started to meetagain regularly with them in December.

Still, Dowds concedes that lack of focus hasled the Cambridge political institution astray."The CCA goes through periods--and this isone--where there isn't any systematic effort forpeople to get together," he says. "Maybe everybodywas busy. I don't quite know why it was."

Dowds says the CCA's current membership isaround 600, larger than in past years. Theorganization is still conducting its 1995membership drive, he says.

"Everybody in the CCA has agreed this is a timefor more systematic cooperation," Dowds says."Councillors are meeting with us about every otherweek. We hope to get the same thing with ourSchool Committee members."

Still, Dowds denies the CCA is undergoing anidentity crisis. "In terms of the current missionof the CCA, that is largely unchanged," he says."The CCA has for 50 years worked to create honest,competent and cost-effective government forCambridge."

The biggest threat to the CCA's politicalhegemony comes from the fledgling Alliance forChange, whose members say the group, in contrastto the CCA, does not support a specific politicalagenda.

"The whole idea in forming the group was toform provide a contrast to the CCA," says EdwardJ. O'Connell, the Alliance's chair. "Thatorganization was dictating policy to electedofficials," he says. "Public policy positionsshould come from the bottom up.

O'Connell says one of the Alliance's purposesis to break the stranglehold of special interests,as represented by the CCA.

"In the CCA, it's a small group of people whoget together and decide what's best for the cityin the name of progressive liberalism, but inreality it's power politics."

CCA supporters vehemently deny the Alliance'scharge.

"It never happens," says Edward N. Cyr, who saton the council from 1990 to 1994. Cyr says the CCAhas repeatedly failed in its efforts to exert"occasionally inappropriate" influence on itscouncillors' votes.

Cyr points to the council's decision in Octoberto extend City Manager Robert W. Healy's contractfor two years. With the exception ofTriantafillou, all of the CCA-endorsed candidatessided with the manager, despite the CCA'sobjections.