U.S. Rep. Martin Meehan (D-Lowell) has received accolades for co-sponsoring landmark campaign finance reform legislation, defending President Clinton during the impeachment proceedings and fighting Big Tobacco.

But now Meehan may be setting his sights on a higher goal: the governorship of Massachusetts.

Democratic political analyst Lou DiNitale says Meehan, who was reelected to a fifth term in Congress last week, has the "tactical pieces" needed for a gubernatorial run.

"He's got a base in Middlesex County," says DiNitale, the poll director at UMass-Boston's McCormack Institute of Public Affairs. "He's developed a national profile on a couple of issues so he'd be able to argue that he's done something, that he has issues on which to run. And he can fundraise."

And after a scandal-ridden year, Republican Gov. A. Paul Cellucci's favorable rating has fallen to 35 percent, according to a Nov. 1-2 Boston

Herald/WCVB Ch. 5 poll, making him potentially vulnerable in 2002.

In an interview with The Crimson last week, Meehan said he would consider running for governor over the next several months.

"I'm not sure what I'm going to do in the future," Meehan says. "The governor's race is something I've thought a little about. Over the next four months or so, I'll have the chance to think a little more about it."