ave we hit bottom yet? If the spotty Sept. 19 primary ballot is a gauge, let's hope so. The free-falling interest in politics and partisanship is staggering.
Massachusetts may be on the verge of another dubious achievement - a record-low turnout in a statewide primary next month. That's no mean feat, considering the previous record, set in 1996, was a stupefying 11.8 percent.
A review of the ballot shows why. There's little reason for most voters to cast ballots in the party primaries. Consider the following facts from the list of candidates who have qualified for next month's ballot.
In 280 of the state's 2,110 precincts (about one of every seven), there is not a single contested race to nominate a candidate from either major party for any office. Where there are candidates, they are unopposed for their party's nomination. That's true in all of Berkshire and Franklin counties in the west and much of Boston in the east.
There are no contests with choices for Republican voters in 79 percent of the state. In fact, in Chelsea, much of Boston, and a few towns in central Massachusetts, the only Republican candidate on the ballot for any office is US Senate longshot Jack E. Robinson III, repudiated by the leader of his own party, Governor Paul Cellucci, in his quixotic challenge to Democratic incumbent Edward M. Kennedy. In these 90 precincts, there are no other GOP candidates for any office - Congress, Governor's Council, the state Legislature, or the remaining county offices.
In 399 precincts statewide (19 percent), there is no Democratic primary contest to be decided anywhere on the ballot. In many other areas, only a county race or two is up for grabs.
Ending a decade of declines in party enrollment as independents reached majority status in the state, the number of partisan primary contests has plunged from 109 in 1990 (81 Democratic, 28 Republican) to 47 this year (42 Democratic, five Republican).
''It's an expensive problem,'' said Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino. The city must staff polling stations for 13 hours at a cost of about $350,000, according to Nancy Lo, Election Commission chairwoman, even though no contests for either party will appear on ballots in about a third of its 254 precincts. The cost statewide is well over $3 million.
Brian Cresta, chairman of the Republican State Committee, blamed the dearth of candidates and docile electorate on the strong economy. The Wakefield state representative said he and other party leaders approached 320 potential candidates this year, but frequently were rebuffed because would-be recruits said they could not afford the financial sacrifice. ''There's no anger out there like in 1990,'' he said of the last year of major Republican gains in the state.
Despite the low raw numbers, Cresta said his party had some recruiting successes this year. ''We didn't go so much for quantity as for quality this year,'' he said.
They'll need plenty of quality to maintain an already skimpy minority. In the Senate, Republicans hold merely seven of 40 seats and are challenging Democrats in only seven other districts this year.
It's worse in the House. The GOP is down to 27 of 160 seats, and five of those are being vacated. Meanwhile, the GOP has no candidate on the ballot in 102 of 160 House districts, although Cresta says Republicans in five other districts will run on stickers in an effort to qualify for the November election ballot. They'll need 150 votes, an easier goal than the 2,000 votes needed by sticker candidate Marc Laplante, a Lawrence city councilor and Republican, attempting to qualify to challenge incumbent Democrat US Representative Martin Meehan of Lowell on the Nov. 7 ballot.
There will be some hot spots churning voter interest on primary day, mostly around a dozen open House seats, the Worcester-based state Senate seat being relinquished by Democrat Robert Bernstein, and a few races for county offices.
But it will be a very quiet day in most places.
One will be Berlin, a small Worcester County exurb where independents make up more than 60 percent of the electorate. Robinson is the only name on the entire Republican ballot. Democratic incumbents are unopposed except for the lesser offices of Governor's Council and county clerk of courts.
''People here are interested in local, and they're interested in national,'' said Town Clerk Eloise Salls. ''I think a lot of it is that they don't know what people in these jobs do.''
