It began almost as soon as Governor Jane Swift capitulated to former Salt Lake City Olympics chief Mitt Romney: the whispering campaign aimed at getting one, two, or possibly even three Democratic hopefuls out of the Massachusetts race for governor. Senate president Tom Birmingham is going to run for treasurer. Former Democratic National Committee chair Steve Grossman is dropping out. Former Watertown state senator Warren Tolman should give up his quixotic quest for the governorship. These are among the rumors and suggestions privately heating up telephone lines all over the Commonwealth.

The astute Boston Globe columnist Joan Vennochi crystallized the thinking in an op-ed Tuesday titled BIRMINGHAM MUST FACE UP TO TOUGH CHOICE. The Senate president, Vennochi wrote, must, like Swift, give up his race for the governorship to better attend to the state’s affairs. Grossman and Tolman should drop out too, she wrote. Birmingham’s quitting "would tighten the Democratic primary contest to a leaner, more disciplined contest between state Treasurer O’Brien and former US labor secretary Robert Reich. Businessman Steve Grossman and former state senator Warren Tolman should drop out for the same reason."

Here’s my two cents’ worth: nobody should drop out. Streamlining the field might make life easier for reporters, but it won’t be better for state Democrats.

The state Democratic Party is finally in a position to have its most robust debate in decades. Let’s have it. O’Brien and Grossman represent the fiscally moderate side of the field — although Grossman opposes delaying the income-tax cut passed by voters in 2000. Birmingham and Reich advocate a more traditional Democratic approach on lunch-bucket issues. Tolman stands, almost exclusively, for the proposition that the legislature should fund the voter-approved state Clean Elections program. Each candidate offers his or her own unique perspective on how best to solve the state’s problems.

Those interested in streamlining the field can take heart in the fact that the state already has a mechanism for doing exactly that. I refer to the 15 percent rule that bars from the ballot any candidate unable to garner 15 percent of the delegates at the nominating convention. Whether you like the 15-percent rule or not, it already serves to prevent frivolous candidates from entering political races here in the Commonwealth.

Lack of funds exerts another natural brake on frivolous candidacies. Candidates who can’t raise the money simply can’t compete in major political races. This lesson was sadly learned by former mayoral candidate Joe Timilty when he threw his hat into the Ninth Congressional District race this summer. Now that Tolman, for example, has complied with the requirements to qualify for Clean Elections by garnering 6000 donations of up to $100, who’s to say he shouldn’t be in the race?

Convincing a candidate to drop out of a race that he or she very much wishes to pursue makes sense under certain circumstances. The classic example is a race, particularly a primary, among three candidates, two of whom share a similar viewpoint. With two similar candidates, the third almost always wins. Exhibit A: last summer’s special election to replace Representative Joe Moakley. Both State Senators Cheryl Jacques of Needham and Brian Joyce of Milton ran as relative social progressives. Both favored abortion rights and gay rights. Their opponent, State Senator Stephen Lynch of South Boston, opposed abortion. Even casual observers could see that Jacques and Joyce would split the progressive vote. (See "Divide and Be Conquered," News and Features, July 26, 2001). Neither dropped out, of course, because both felt they had the money and the support to be serious candidates.

But the Ninth Congressional District race turned on a dynamic completely different from that in the current governor’s race. No clear ideological threat exists among the Democratic contenders to convince any of the candidates to quit the field. Who is the conservative Democrat sure to win unless one of the other candidates drops out? There isn’t one. True, Romney wins the benefit of not having a primary foe — and thus not spending any money. But there’s nothing to suggest that a robust primary debate among Democrats won’t be just as helpful to the eventual Democratic nominee. In fact, politics is filled with examples of candidates who have survived tough primaries and then done far better than those who coast to the general election; no one can deny that President George W. Bush was a much better campaigner after he beat back the challenge from Arizona senator John McCain.

When it comes to the Massachusetts governor’s race, let them all run. And may the best candidate win.