WinterSports2002.com - Swift's out; Mitt's mum

WinterSports2002.com, Tuesday, March 19, 2002

Swift's out; Mitt's mum

By Lisa Riley Roche
Deseret News staff writer

Mitt Romney is expected to be the Republican candidate for governor in Massachusetts now that his only GOP rival, acting Gov. Jane Swift, is dropping out of the race.

The Salt Lake Organizing Committee president, who returned home to a Boston suburb on Sunday, has yet to announce he's running. However, his campaign has reserved a room in a downtown Boston hotel for an event at 4 p.m. Tuesday.

"No comment yet," Romney's eldest son, Tagg, said from the family's home in Belmont on Tuesday morning. The town hosted a welcome home party for Romney and his wife, Ann, on Monday.

A source in the Swift campaign told the Deseret News Tuesday that the acting governor was withdrawing from the race and would support Romney. "It's the nature of the business," the source said.

Romney, 55, has polled strongly against Swift as well as all of the potential Democratic candidates. A new poll in Sunday's Boston Herald showed Romney beating Swift 75 percent to 12 percent, with just 13 percent undecided.

Swift was quoted in the newspaper on Monday saying she would not drop out of the race. She became Massachusetts' first female chief executive and, at 37, the nation's youngest, succeeding Paul Cellucci in April when he was named ambassador to Canada.

"It's a tremendous surprise," one of Romney's supporters, Jim Burke, said Tuesday of Swift's withdrawal.

"If you look at the results from the poll, if you look at the activists throughout the state who have jumped on board with him, it could have been a very embarrassing convention, I guess," Burke said. "I'm shocked."

Burke, the president of a political consulting and direct-mail firm in Massachusetts, recently launched a Web site, www.draftmitt.com, to rally support for a Romney run. He said Swift may just be doing what's best for the GOP.

"I would have to admire her if she believes this would be the best way for us to keep the corner office in November," Burke said. "I'm as happy for the state of Massachusetts as I am for (Romney) and his candidacy."

Romney told reporters in Massachusetts on Sunday that he was "99 percent there" in making a decision about the race. He also closed the door on the possibility of running for office in Utah.

"I generally have tried not to close doors definitely until that was necessary," The Associated Press reported Romney as saying Sunday. "But in this particular case there is no prospect of my running for office in Utah."

Romney has already been a target in the Massachusetts campaign. Swift's camp tried to make an issue out of his residency, suggesting he might not be qualified to run because he'd lived in Utah since taking over SLOC in February 1999.

At a St. Patrick's Day political roast, a state senator joked that Romney, Massachusetts' best-known Mormon, and Swift's previously married husband have something in common. "They both think they can have four wives," state Sen. Guy Glodis said.

Romney has said politics is a "blood sport" in Massachusetts, something he learned during his strong but ultimately unsuccessful challenge of Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., in 1994. "It's just whack, whack, whack," he has said.

Swift had nominated him to run against Kennedy in 1994.

However, his political aspirations may also include a run for the White House someday. His late father, George Romney, ran a short-lived campaign for president in 1968 after serving as Michigan's governor.

Romney is still the president and chief executive officer of SLOC, which organized both the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. The 2002 Winter Games were seen by many as the best-ever, as were the Paralympics for disabled athletes that ended on Saturday.

E-MAIL: lisa@desnews.com