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CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- When the Coalition for Basic Human Needs, a group of localactivists, met at a Harvard Square church the other night, sevencandidates for Congress showed up to debate housing, hunger and poverty.One candidate, the front-runner, was conspicuously absent. His name isKennedy.

This was no surprise here, for Joseph P. Kennedy II, eldest son ofthe late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (D-N.Y.) and nephew of Sen. EdwardM. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and the late President John F. Kennedy, has had itwith what he calls "special interest groups that hold these friggingforums."

"They're all focused on whether or not I make the rote liberalanswers and go through the laundry list of issues," he said.

If glamor, money and good looks count for something in politics, the33-year-old with the magic name should win the Democratic primary in the8th Congressional District of James Michael Curley, John F. Kennedy andThomas P. (Tip) O'Neill Jr. The district, predicts House SpeakerO'Neill, is "Kennedy country."

Joe and his sister Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, who is running forCongress in Maryland's 2nd district, are the first of their generationof Kennedys to try for elective office.

But, after leading by a wide margin in the polls since the day heannounced, Joe Kennedy has suddenly found himself in a tight race withstate Sen. George Bachrach, a scrappy campaigner who attacks Kennedy for"ducking" debates and advertises himself as the most liberal candidate.

One independent poll last week showed Bachrach within 6 percentagepoints of Kennedy, with former Boston mayoral candidate Mel King,Democratic activist James Roosevelt and others trailing far behind.Kennedy campaign manager Chuck McDermott, while still predictingvictory, said Bachrach "has the momentum."

Winning the Sept. 16 Democratic primary is tantamount to election inthis heavily Democratic district.

Last Wednesday, while his rivals were on Harvard Square debating suchissues as "the feminization of poverty," Kennedy was in the recreationroom of a nearby high-rise, telling jokes, kissing women, invoking thename of his grandmother Rose and flashing the famous toothy grin at acoffee for middle-income tenants.

He recalled working for an antipoverty program in Washington, D.C.,founded under his uncle's presidency and later known as the CommunityServices Administration. "It was a bunch of government bureaucrats thatwere much more interested in maintaining the poor in poverty becausethat would justify their own jobs," he said.

"And that's not what I was taught this government or Democratic Partyshould be standing for. We should try to embody the spirit ofindependence," he added.

The anti-Washington, antigovernment theme runs though Kennedy'sspeeches, a message tailored to ethnic blue-collar workers who fill thetwo-story row houses of Somerville, East Boston and Charlestown.

"My strong suit is with ordinary, hard-working families," not the"squeaky wheels" who populate Harvard Square, Beacon Hill and otheryuppie bastions, Kennedy said. Polls show him beating Bachrach 4 to 1among those with a high school degree or less, while Bachrach leads 2 to1 among college graduates. Women lean overwhelmingly toward Kennedy, mentoward Bachrach.

Kennedy favors the death penalty, advocates competition amonghospitals to reduce health-care costs, supports private/publicpartnerships to build housing and was the only candidate to approve ofPresident Reagan's bombing of Libya.

"If Robert Kennedy were alive today, he would not be voting for Joe,"said Steve Pearlstein, a Bachrach adviser.

Kennedy -- who told one interviewer, "I hate that word 'legacy' " -- counters, "My father didn't have a great time with the liberals. A lotof liberals didn't like Robert Kennedy."

Fifteen when his father was assassinated in 1968, Joe Kennedy had atroubled scholastic career, attending three prep schools and threecolleges before graduating from the University of Massachusetts with adegree in paralegal education.

In 1973, he made national headlines when a jeep he was driving onNantucket overturned, leaving a girl paralyzed. Kennedy was convicted ofreckless driving and fined $100.

In the last seven years, however, he has made a success of anonprofit company that sells low-cost heating oil to statefuel-assistance programs, and, since oil prices dropped, has spun offinto a profit-making corporation that did nearly $1 billion in oiltrading last year.

The Citizens Energy Corp. gave Kennedy a powerful issue to run on."At Citizens Energy, I learned how to help those in need without leavinga trail of debt," his fliers boast. "In Washington, there's no reasonthey can't learn also."

Bachrach, 34, a man with a quick mind and more of a knack forpolitical organization than for pressing the flesh, has raised about$560,000, half of what Kennedy has. While his legislative record issparse, he makes mileage from being a self-described "incorrigible" whohas challenged the state Senate leadership.

Half of Kennedy's money has been raised out of state, leadingBachrach to exult, "Let the other candidate hobnob with Jane Fonda inCalifornia and Andy Warhol in New York. George Bachrach is morecomfortable having a beer with Joe Taverna down at the Paddock on PearlStreet in Somerville."

Bachrach has attended all 42 issues forums organized in the district,charging that Kennedy skipped half of them because "he's not terriblycomfortable with the issues."

Kennedy said, "I'm maybe not as good a talker. I grew up going toparochial schools with 50 or 60 kids and one nun . . . . Academia neverreally caught my interest in a big way." But, he added, "Politicalleadership is what counts."

As the race heats up, it grows more personal, in the tradition ofBoston's brawling politics. Globe columnist Mike Barnicle attackedBachrach, who is single, as "the latest example of Bachelor Politics . .. . Many of Bachrach's supporters have 1.4 children and a Perrierbubbler in the kitchen." Politicians like Bachrach, Barnicle wrote,"don't have to worry about things like a summer job for a son or thedent caused by the cost of Pampers." Boston Herald columnist Howie Carrridiculed Kennedy as a "spoiled rich kid" who threatens to "punch outcampaign workers for his uncle" -- a reference to an incident in EdwardKennedy's 1982 reelection campaign -- and "scream{s} at airline clerks,'Do you know who I am?' "

Ethnic loyalties are also a factor. Kennedy, married and the fatherof twin sons, plays his Irish Catholicism to the hilt. Bachrach,although the district is less than 2 percent Jewish, harkens back to hisrefugee parents in a television ad.

At Wednesday's coffee, Margaret Hanafin, a retired sales clerk, saidsimply, "I was always with the Kennedys -- all my life."

Fred Fantini, a school committee member, supports Kennedy because"It's practical: When he walks into a room, people want to cooperatewith him. We need federal funds in this district."

But residents say the building as a whole will go for Bachrach, whoworked hard to get bus service for them. "Kennedy is flying high,goodbye," said Marion Bucewicz, a retired secretary. "If he wins, you'llnever see him again. He's young. He hasn't much experience. He's tryingto start at the top."