ELECTION AFTERMATH

My vote does not automatically betoken disaster. The Cambridge election yesterday bears that out -- somewhat. Why, Henrietta Davis, my No. 3 vote for city council, was re-elected, and Marjorie Decker, my No. 6 vote, and so on ...

In fact, five of my nine votes for city council came through, and four of my six for school committee.

But rent control failed, a �lopsided defeat that probably marks the permanent end of rent control as an issue in Cambridge,� according to Robert Winter�s Cambridge Civic Journal.

Out of 20,299 votes cast, 12,467 were opposed to rent control and 7,832 were in favor. The home-rule petition needed slightly more than 18,800 to move on to the Legislature, and that�s pretty much all the people who voted.

I�m no so sure rent control is dead, but I�m also sure I have no idea what its backers were thinking, forcing the vote in an off-year when motivations to come to the polls is low -- that is, unless you�re a property owner petrified by the thought of rent restrictions being placed again. For renters, who are in a relatively gentle market, rent control probably doesn�t seem that urgent. (It may again soon.) More of Cambridge�s 55,000-plus voters would have made it to the polls next year, to vote against President Bush�s re-election.

Which reminds me: The sole Cambridge candidate with the guts to identify himself as a Republican, city council hopeful Robert L. Hall Sr., was cut in the fourth round of the election, earning, on his own, 96 first-place votes. To paraphrase �Repo Man,� �I don�t want no rent control in my city. No Republicans either!�