MARLBOROUGH--As he jogged down Main Street during last week's Labor Day Parade, Acting Governor A. Paul Cellucci was approached by an aide who informed him that he had missed shaking hands with one of his "biggest supporters."

Reassuring a group of voters he would be right back, Cellucci spinned around and ran back down the street half a block to have a word with an elderly constituent.

The latest polls put him at least 25 points ahead of his top party opponent, but as Cellucci showed last week in Marlborough, he isn't letting any opportunities to win a vote slip by.

"We will continue to fight for all votes," says Andy T. Antrobus, a Cellucci spokesperson. "The campaign is about transcending elections and pushing ideas."

Several fife and drum corps and a high school marching band later, L. Scott Harshbarger '64 hit the Main Street parade route with the same determination to shake every outstretched hand.

"I've played enough Harvard football games in my life to know that nothing can be taken for granted," Harshbarger said as he clapped along to the Marlborough High School band. "Before I play in the World Series, I have to win the division playoffs."

Still, with the outcome of Tuesday's elections almost assured, many Massachusetts voters are already gearing up for an election that will pit two highly visible candidates and their highly visible records of public service against each other in the race to become the next Bay State governor.

Leader of the Pack

For registered Democratic voters like John O'Brien, a Worcester resident at last week's parade, the primary elections stand in the way of what he describes as the "real race."

"I think Harshbarger is the best of the three candidates and that has been evident since day one," says the 43-year-old quality control supervisor. "I just wish we could get on to November."

Of course, Harshbarger's popularity has not always been so assured. Even in Cambridge where he lived as an undergraduate and law school student, Central Square residents interviewed by The Crimson last February questioned whether the attorney general had their best interests at heart.

Coffeehouse customers, Cambridge police officers, and a local minister all said Harshbarger was an urban professional who would do best collecting votes from the city's more affluent neighborhoods.

And while Harshbarger has certainly succeeded in winning more than his fair share of support among Harvard professors and administrators, several of whom have contributed to his campaign, he has also succeeded in broadening his base of support.

"He's always been close to Cambridge because of his address on Sacramento Street," says Walter Sullivan, a former mayor of Cambridge whose son Michael A. Sullivan is a city councillor.

"It may have taken time for him to win widespread support, but I think people in the city have realized how involved he has been in the city and how much attention he pays to his work," Sullivan adds.