Melissa Freitag pitches herself as the all-rounder candidate.

“I have the strongest professional, educational and strongest contribution to local government as a package,” she said, adding:

“I have a history of public service, and not on a per-hour stipend. I’m not doing this for my own health. One thing I teach is that the state exists at the will of the people and it can’t function without the volunteerism of the people.”

She emphasizes her educational qualifications.

“I’m a public school teacher — talk about serving your community,” she said.

She points out that Mr. Madden is the only candidate not to complete a college education.

Like the other candidates, she supports single-payer health care.

“Health care should not be a for-profit industry,’ she said. “It’s one of my sacrosanct issues.”

If elected she said she hopes to join the rules committee and said that she will fight to make the budgetary process more transparent for the public.

“It’s our tax dollars back there, and the meetings are not open,” she said

Born in Boston, Ms. Freitag spent a year in Austria while a student at Smith College. Returning to Vienna to complete a master’s degree in comparative education, she became interested in public service, admiring among other things the European approach to health care.

She now teaches part-time at Cape Cod Community College and also works at a Cape architecture firm.

She has campaigned with no major backing of political organizations and, as a municipal employee, has met funding challenges.

“It’s been slower than I hoped,” she said of the fundraising, adding that she decided to change a Woods Hole event last Wednesday from a fundraiser to political rally in light of the economic crisis.

However, she said she has made all the purchases that she intends to make, ahead of the week in which political candidates often make their most frenzied chapter of spending.

“It’s exhausting, it’s been tough,” she said, adding that she was preparing mid-term examinations on the ferry earlier. “What an adventure. I can’t wait for the race to end and finish the semester with a bang.”

Ms. Freitag suggested that the seat is very much still up for grabs in this race.

On Nantucket, she said, Mr. Madden’s support may not be as ubiquitous as widely imagined, after his landslide win there in the Democratic primary.

She added that mainland voters are beginning to wake up to the fact that while Nantucket and the Vineyard have designated legislative liaisons who work with the state representative, Falmouth may be without a home representative at the state house if an Island candidate clinches the nomination.

And like the other candidates, Ms. Freitag has approached the Vineyard as a crucial constituency in her campaigning and estimates she has made between 60 and 70 ferry trips to Vineyard Haven since she decided to run.

“It’s going to be close here,” she predicted.