Hidden away in small apartments doubling as campaign office, littered with mass-produced campaign postcards and brightly colored flyers, lie the few, the unknown-Massachusetts' dark horse candidates.

Since the Sept. 15 primary, Cantabrigians have tossed around the names of Capuano, Cellucci and Harshbarger as the front-runners in the Eighth Congressional and gubernatorial races.

But despite the polls predicting that Democrat Michael A. Capuano will be the clear winner in the Eighth and the heated debates publicizing the close race between Acting Gov. A. Paul Cellucci and Attorney General L. Scott Harshbarger '64, the dark horses keep running.

Their motives are many.

This year, one wants publicity for his book on 'timesizing' and another says he wants to legalize medical uses of marijuana.

But despite the peculiar platforms that characterize this motley crew, they all say that idealism and new plans for running government lie at the heart of their campaigns.

The Party Game

In Democratic Cambridge, Republicans and third-party candidates can often get to the final election uncontested.

"Basically, because there's no opposition, you're going to get your name on the ballot almost for free," says Robert Winters, a local politico and Harvard math preceptor who publishes an on-line community newsletter.

"There will always be high visibility [in elections], so there will always be people with particularly big axes to grind who will find the energy to try to support themselves," he says.

This year's candidates fit within Winter's profile.

While gubernatorial candidate Dean E. Cook is an ardent Libertarian, heavily involved in the party and committed to the party's standard of keeping government out of personal lives, Congressional candidates Philip Hyde III and Anthony A. Schinella chose their affiliations more haphazardly.

"Even though I've been a longtime Democrat activist, I campaigned as an independent so we could get these issues into the final," Schinella says.

"If I had run as a Democrat, I would have been one of the nine who lost. Now, I'm able to give my ideas an extra twomonth life in the final," he says.

Likewise, Hyde's motivation in campaigning as a Republican was a catapult him beyond the primary.

Although fiscally conservative, the Republican's social stances hardly seem right-wing-he is pro-choice and against the death penalty. The seeming dichotomy is perhaps due to his method of choosing his party affilation.