"I was excluded and abandoned by the Democratic Party because I didn't have the money to break in," she says. "What I found out is that the only way you can get into the political process is to be a millionaire."

Umina originally declared his candidacy as a Republican two years ago. But the deals the other candidates had to make in order to gain the support of special interest groups disgusted him, he says.

"What I learned as a potential Republican nominee is that the political corruption begins in the political party," Umina says. "I didn't want anything to do with it. I was going to leave politics. But my supporters came to me and said please don't."

He didn't. Instead of quitting in disgust, Umina recruited other business executives and formed his own political party--the High Tech Independents. He also collected more than 47,000 signatures to put his name on the ballot.

Now Umina heads a political organization, but he still harbors a dislike of big party politics.

"People are beginning to realize that political parties cannot solve the problems because they are part of the problem," Umina says. "The offices are sold to the highest bidder. The reason they can't talk issues is because the special interests have purchased their opinions."

Stevens says that the biggest obstacle in her short-lived Democratic campaign was getting the original $800 to pay for the list of 5000 delegates to the Democratic convention. For a single mother trying to raise a family on a welfare check, the fee was significant.

The Democratic Party eventually accepted a $100 down payment for the list, but by the time she received it, it was too late to gain the support of many delegates, she says. Without a significant margin if support at the party convention, Stevens was forced to take her ideas directly to the voters as a write-in candidate.

BUT WHILE THE independent candidates say they are frustrated with political corruption, that in and of itself is not their biggest concern. The main reason they are running for office is to change the state's taxing and spending priorities, they say.

Predictably, there is a great deal of disagreement among the independents on the question of state revenues. Stevensthinks the state has enough money as it is, andthat only spending patterns need to be changed.

"There is plenty of money in this state,"Stevens says. "We're the third richest state inthe country. It's the priorities we need tochange. We need to invest in human beings ratherthan businesses."

On the other hand, Mark A. Emanation, theSocialist Workers' Party candidate, is in favor ofhigher taxes on business and the rich. And at theopposite extreme, Umina, like Weld, favors theCitizens for Limited Taxation initiative to rollback all state taxes and fees to their 1988levels.

Stevens, who is working toward her mastersdegree in human service management at theUniversity of Massachusetts, favors a $10 dollarminimum wage and increased welfare benefits to theput the state's entire population at or above thepoverty line.

She argues that the entire economy will benefitby transferring money to the poor. "Increasingwelfare benefit levels will bump up everythingelse," she says.

This transfer of wealth is a critical steptoward breaking the subcultures of violence anddrugs which dominate the streets, she says. "In myneighborhood the kids are killing each other leftand right, and it is because this country is notinvesting in its children."