Mass. Gov. Swift Drops Out of Race

By JOHN McELHENNY
.c The Associated Press

 
BOSTON (AP) - Acting Gov. Jane Swift dropped out of the governor's race Tuesday, just hours before Salt Lake City Winter Olympics chief Mitt Romney was expected to announce his candidacy.

``I believe that this is in the best interest of our state as it will allow the Republican Party's best chances of holding the governor's office in November,'' Swift said, fighting back tears at a noon news conference at the Statehouse.

Swift's poll numbers have plummeted since speculation has grown that Romney, a venture capitalist, would challenge her for the Republican nomination.

The most recent poll showed Romney, whose only political experience is an unsuccessful challenge to Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy in 1994, leading Swift 75 percent to 12 percent.

Swift, 37, became Massachusetts' first female chief executive, and the nation's youngest, in April, succeeding Paul Cellucci when he became ambassador to Canada. She was also the first governor in the nation's history to give birth in office when she had twin girls in May. She also has another daughter.

Swift said she reached the decision to drop out within the past day, citing family reasons and the increased demands of governorship in recent months as the state's budget problems worsened.

``There isn't a working parent in America that hasn't faced it - when the demands of the two tasks that you take on both increase substantially, something has to give.''

Up until recently, she had said she was undaunted by a challenge from Romney, 55.

Late last month, after a Republican activist had tried unsuccessfully to get her a job in the Bush administration to ease her out of the governor's race, Swift told reporters: ``I guess I should be accustomed to powerful men trying to tell me that they know better than I do what it is I should be doing.''

Romney has decided to run and will make public his decision Tuesday evening after a meeting with supporters, according to a friend of Romney's who spoke on condition of anonymity.

``He's running,'' said the friend, who has talked to Romney repeatedly in recent days.

The birth of Swift's twins produced a wave of favorable national publicity and a bounce in the polls.

But when she returned to work at the end of June, she continued to find herself with little political capital and a Statehouse dominated by Democrats.

That made tough challenges even tougher: a worsening budget crunch, calls for added security measures after Sept. 11, and a controversial decision not to commute the sentence of a convicted child molester.

Earlier, as lieutenant governor, Swift's popularity plummeted after it was revealed she had asked workers on her staff to baby-sit her first child, Elizabeth. She also used a State Police helicopter to fly home for Thanksgiving to care for Elizabeth when she was ill.

In 2000, the state Ethics Commission ruled she had created an appearance of impropriety by allowing aides to baby-sit for her daughter and fined her $1,250.

More recently, she was sued by two members of the Turnpike Authority board whom she fired after they voted to delay toll hikes.

Romney has been riding a wave of popularity since successfully leading the Winter Olympics. A longtime Massachusetts resident who graduated from Brigham Young University in Utah and sent his children there, Romney graduated from Harvard Business School and went to work in Boston at Bain & Co., where he rose to chairman.

In 1984, he co-founded Bain Capital, a venture capital company. He has been active in Belmont's Mormon community, which constructed a 70,000-square-foot temple in 2000.
============================================

Well, is this a improvement over Swift?   And is he pro gun enough?

Don't know his stance on Guns but he was brought into the SLC IOC after the scandal, to clean up the mess and deficit.  

Oh, thanks for the correction. Glad to see he wasn't THAT particular Olympics chief.  

no problem.  Thats one of the reason he has such high approval ratings.  He can clean things up.  

I'll have wait to see what his actual politcal views are.  But then again, he has to be 10 times better than any of the democRATS.  Especially the ex-Klinton sec. Robert Reich.

Thank god she dropped out! She has been busy
shooting herself in the foot since she took over. Be interesting to see what Romneys politics are.

Being from Ma.,I thought a woman and and her gay running mate were a shoe in![:o]...Damn,we need gov.Weld, the hunter back![^]

Romney is good people. He does not sling mud, does not take advantage of the office he serves in, and does everything to serve those who put him there. It is too bad that the current Govenor of Mass. cannot have the same said about her actions while in office.

He should have beat Kennedy when he ran against him for a seat in the Senate, but he refused to attack Chappaquidik Teddy on a personal level.

I think that the best words to describe Romney are: hard-working, honest, classy, and respectable. I think that this will be a welcome change to the status quo of politics in Mass. Personally, I hope he decides to run for the Senate again in the next few years. Somebody needs to unseat Kennedy and it might as well be someone who is a Republican and a credit to the people of Mass.

This was the best news I got all year. I knew that Swift was going to loose to a Democrook if she ran. And if for some reason she did get lucky and won, there wouldn't have been much of a difference. Swift rolled over on every gun issue that approached her desk. You never would have know she was a Republican if someone didn't tell you.

Neil