Governor Swift: A Cautionary Tale -- Notes

Reserve Reading

-women enter politics 10 yrs later then men, after children
-Ost 1998, Swift was 33, gave birth to baby girl less then 3 weeks before MA elected her as lieutenant gov
-career had sharp ups and downs, Dec 2000 only 17% approval
-Used colleagues to babysit for her
-Bush named the Gov ambassador to Canada so Swift got the seat
-April 2001, she's gov + pregnant with twins due in may
-arranged for meetings on speaker phone from her hospital bed, one previous gov had done so from a jail
-read her reports in the long commute because there wasn't a govs house close to work
-two planes in 9/11 took off from Boston and she fought to make airport security national
-March 19, 2002 Swift announced she wasn't going to run for election
-When she was 6, Swift's father took her to campaign meetings
-Graduated from Trinity College in Hartford
-Ran for Senate at 24 without knowing what she was going to face
-In 1990 people wanted a change and a young woman was exactly that, her opponent helped her by making her look younger and insulting the fact that she was a deparment store clerk
-She won and became the youngest woman elected to state senate
-Swift was the 13th woman in MA state senate
-MA has a bad rep for electing women, only one as of 1998 in statewide office
-Almost won House of Reps in 1996
-Was made coordiantor of regional airports, and then state director of consumer affairs, then picked for lieutenant gov
-Pregnancy became a huge part of the campaign and Swift denied to answer many questions
-Swift found women were much more skeptical of her and her hardest voting block
-Had a c-section about 2 weeks before the vote, which they then won
-1998 huge Democratic year and yet they won as republicans
-affected appointment of public safety coordinator to Jane Perlov
-had huge responsibilities as lieutenant gov which was more then others would have done
-sometimes had people in the office babysit for her but she argued that it was because they were friends before she got elected
-helped women get places in the government, including head of judiciary
-Swift left it up to the democratic woman and Mitt Romney who won. She was too progressive for the main Republican party and MA was to against women