When the Massachusetts citizens cast their votes on November 5, many will have never heard of Rob Stowe '81.

Stowe, a physics concentrator during his undergraduate days, is the Natural Law Party's (NLP) Massachusetts candidate for the United States Senate.

While Stowe admits to having less experience than his mainstream opponents Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and Republican Governor William F. Weld '66, he is not a complete stranger to the political arena.

As a third-party candidate, Stowe's goals are realistic. Stowe says that he would be satisfied, in the event that he is not elected to the Senate, to have the policies he advocates adopted by the winning candidate.

Still, in the spirit which has come to typify the platforms of political outsiders, Stowe says, "The approaches of the two other parties are stale."

When questioned on the relevance of his own party to the American political process, Stowe cites the gains made by the new Republican party in the 1850s and 1860s as an example worthy of emulation.

Likewise, Stowe cites the women's suffrage movement as an instance when a non-mainstream party was successful in gaining for women the right to vote.

Stowe received his Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1990 and was the director of policy development at Maharishi University of Management.

His experience, however, is not confined to academia. In 1994, Stowe was the NLP's unsuccessful candidate for lieutenant governor of Iowa.

The father of two and native of Ludlow, Mass., Stowe is also an expert in the agricultural management and policy of developing countries.

From 1988 to 1990, Stowe consulted the Washington-based non-profit "Citizens Network" on agricultural and agribusiness projects in Russia, Ukraine and Uganda.

Stowe says the NLP's major principles include the party's focus on preventing problems as a way to save time and money, but he hesitates to define his position or party as either "conservative" or "liberal."

Stowe does not make clear his position on the divisive issues of abortion and affirmative action programs.

"Pro-choice, but anti-abortion," is how Stowe summarizes his stand on the subject.

Stowe says, "Government has no place in decisions of reproductive choice; it is the decision of the individual."

But Stowe qualifies his statement by saying that the NLP believes that government should do what it can to limit the number of abortions.