Bay State Party Machine Corrodes

WITH his distinctive crest of snowy hair and New England locution, Sen. Edward Kennedy has come to personify America's liberal establishment.

But if voters in Massachusetts dump the five-term Democrat, as polls suggest they might, Senator Kennedy will fast become an example of something else: What happens to political stalwarts when the electorate evolves.

Registered Democrats still outnumber Republicans by 3 to 1 statewide, but the ranks of unenrolled voters and independents have burgeoned to 60 percent in some suburban counties.

Unlike their urban counterparts, these voters are less tolerant of taxes and social spending, and more apt to trod over party lines.

``People in Massachusetts are much more comfortable being Republicans than ever before,'' says Bill Vernon, executive director of the Massachusetts Republican Party. ``It used to be something you wouldn't mention at a party, now it's not that exotic.''

The electoral shift is largely a function of demographics.

In the last 30 years, Democrats have watched their blue-collar urban power base erode, analysts say. Jobs in manufacturing have fallen from 33 percent to only 16 percent of the total work force, and the percentage of population in cities over 150,000 has declined from 23 to just 15 percent.

Meanwhile, growth in suburban areas and the service economy, particularly financial services, has attracted younger, more affluent white-collar workers who have squeezed into the suburbs. These new voters, many of them from other states, don't identify with the liberal traditions of old.

``These trends bode well for the [GOP],'' Mr. Vernon says. ``We should continue to grow.''

Indeed, a glance at the candidacies of Kennedy and the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, state Rep. Mark Roosevelt, reveal a picture of a party in limbo.

``The stark differences between these races are indicative of the changing nature of politics in Massachusetts,'' says Lou DiNatale, senior fellow at the McCormack Institute at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. ``Kennedy is stuck with running on his record, while Roosevelt is a newcomer trying to redefine the party. Neither one is drawing much enthusiasm from voters.''

Polls show Kennedy running two points ahead of Republican venture capitalist Mitt Romney in the Senate race. In the gubernatorial contest, Democrat Roosevelt, campaigning as moderate, trails incumbent Republican William Weld by 27 points.

All this is good news to conservatives here, whose 30-year litany of collective frustration is topped only by fans of the Boston Red Sox.

After Jack Kennedy's successful bids for the US Senate in 1952 and the presidency in 1960, Massachusetts Democrats locked in independent voters and began 30 years of dominance in which state government grew every year, forming arguably the US`s most expansive social safety net.

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