NewsMax.com Wires
Monday, Feb. 12, 2001

The job may be hers as soon as April, the White House's target date for Gov. Paul Cellucci to become ambassador to Canada, the Boston Globe reported Sunday.

Pregnant with twins, Swift may be even more versed in policy issues than Cellucci, who brings her along to nearly all staff and Cabinet meetings, the paper reported. They agree on most issues, though Swift is a slightly more liberal Republican. She is a hardliner on criminal justice and fiscal policy, but a steadfast champion of causes such as abortion rights, freedom of speech, and public education.

Her approval ratings among voters have been abysmal – a Globe poll in October found only 20 percent of those surveyed held a favorable view of her – since this paper reported last year that she relied on political aides to babysit her daughter. The news drew an investigation and fine from the state Ethics Commission.

Swift, who grew up on the western edge of Massachusetts, in North Adams, is the daughter of a plumber and schoolteacher. She attended Trinity College in Hartford, and was in the management-training program at the G. Fox department store in that city.

Just a few years later, she was elected the state's youngest woman senator, at age 25. When Cellucci plucked her from relative obscurity to be his running mate in 1998, in large part because of her tough campaign skills, she was seemingly riding a political rocket.

A t the time, she received national media attention for being the first candidate to deliver a baby while running for office in Massachusetts. Her daughter Elizabeth's birth announcement was printed on campaign stationery just a few weeks before the gubernatorial election, The Globe said.

The question is whether the public perception of Swift - damaged by what is obliquely referred to as ''the crisis,'' her use of aides for personal chores including moving furniture and baby-sitting - will ever change.

When she announced in December that she and her husband Charles Hunt, who is a full-time father, were expecting twins, Swift said she was committed to keeping her State House job while her husband cared for the children in Williamstown, two hours from Boston.

Copyright 2001 by United Press International. All rights reserved.