But candidates' messages are sounding much the same as in past years: increase affordable housing, strengthen education, limit zoning.

One reason is that the bread and butter issue of Cambridge politics--rent control--is off the ballot, and its return isn't imminent.

Candidates are reluctant to say that--advocating the return of rent control is a popular stance--but the likelihood of rent control making a comeback as a galvanizing issue is faint. And while there was an effort to get a rent-control initiative on the ballot, even rent control advocates admit its only purpose was to get people to the polls.

"The strategy was to put the question on the ballot not because it would win," said Glenn S. Koocher '71, a local political analyst, on Sunday.

"It would have mobilized voters, and the turnout would have been better for tenants," he said.

So Cambridge is left to redefine itself as a city without a major divisive issue.

Those voters who came to the polls said it was a sense of democratic responsibility rather than any particular issue that motivated them.