The Massachusetts Spy Volume CCXXXVI, Number 142 October 1, 2006 

Kerry Healey's Diary

Editors' Note: Once again, our Lieutenant Governor has taken time from her suddenly much busier schedule to share with Spy readers the innermost thoughts of a dedicated public servant, this time as she hits the campaign trail. Of course, as she notes, unless things turn around, there may not be too many more diary entries describing her political career.


September 20

Dear Diary,

I can hardly believe it -- it's really true: I'm going to be Governor of Massachusetts! ME! It was an exciting primary night for me although without an opponent I didn't have too, too much to worry about except looking gubernatorial in my power suit and good hair. The Democrats had to sweat it out all day but I had time to touch up the streaks!

Kerry's dream
That's my new office, upper left!

Anyway I was super well prepared because Seany, who thinks of everything just like a husband should, hired a whole bunch of people from Washington who came "highly recommended by Karl." It doesn't get any better than that! Actually it does -- Seany picks up the checks for everything! Don't you wish your husband had a wallet like mine?

 

These hotshots in person don't look so hot -- kind of overweight and pasty faced and not people you'd bring to Myopia for the hunt, if you catch my drift, but they're here to do a job.  They had a whole binder of stuff prepared for me to say and all I had to do was read page 1 on primary night!

Speaking of doing a job, I couldn't believe it when they said I had to talk about illegal immigrants and how dangerous they are and how Deval Patrick wants to bus them into your daughter's school and stuff.  I mean, I really, really love Paulina who keeps all 22 rooms tidy and does the laundry and Carlos the gardener who does such a great job spreading the mulch around and let's not forget his gorgeous nephew Roberto who is just busy every day in the summer cleaning the pool in nothing but his Speedos.  Of course I'm not going to deport them! 

Anyway they said my best issue was the tax issue.  I mean, this Deval guy wants me and Seany to pay another $13,500 in taxes next year.  Does he think I'm made of money or something?

 

Of course it's only $200 for the little people but that's money too -- I mean that's how much it cost to touch up my highlights on primary night!

September 26

Dear Diary,

Kerry Healey greets her public
See they really like me!

As pumped as I was on primary night, that's how down in the dumps I am now after my first debate. It was so unfair that they all ganged up on me like I was the one who loosened the bolts on the Big Dig. Me! Mitt never let me near the Turnpike Authority and now it's all my fault!

 

That horrible Christy Minus or whatever his name is kept getting in my face, like anyone cares what he thinks. I don't see why I should have to respond to him -- the only reason he's even a candidate is because he's got millions to invest in the campaign! It's so unfair!

And Deval just drives me craaazy, diary. Every time I attack him for running a negative campaign or raising taxes or giving illegal aliens free Buicks, he just smiles pretty and says nothing and those terrible newspapers just let him get away with it! And if I have to listen one more time to his story about how he was born in a slum I'm just going to hurl! I came from trailer trash myself but you don't hear me talking about it!

Anyway the fat guys that Seany hired tell me to calm down and read from the binder and that my internal polls show I'm within "striking distance."

September 27

Dear Diary,

Can I confide in you?  My friend Muffy from Pride's Crossing called and said she

 

was so sorry and I said why are you so sorry the campaign's doing so well and she asked if I had seen the latest polls and I said that I was within striking distance. Then she told me that the latest polls had me 25 points behind Deval. I almost threw the phone against the wall. I started screaming for the fat guys and said do I look like an idiot to you and they said no and I asked them if they had gone to Harvard like me and they said no and then I asked them if they thought that 25 points was striking distance. It's striking distance of total humiliation! They said not to trust early polls and that the campaign was in great shape.

Then wonderful Seany called and said that the polls were bull doo-doo and not to worry! He's such a pick-me-up. He said that I should challenge Deval to a one-on-one debate without that horrible Christy Minus and the homely girl with the bad teeth and then people would see me as I really am -- the next governor! So the fat guys had me read a statement accusing Deval of being a coward because he won't debate me by himself. What's he so scared of?

 

Anyway, I had a glass of wine and now I feel much better. Diary, I have to go run -- I have to go speak to some people in Wilbur or someplace like that and I'll tell them that Deval wants to tax their lottery tickets and give them to illegal aliens!

♡♡♡♡ and Kisses,
Your next Gov., Kerry Healey! 
 

HEY, NOBODY'S PERFECT

Tessa Jowell has separated from her husband after the 'painful discovery' that he did not tell her the full facts about his controversial financial deals, friends of the cabinet minister said yesterday.The Culture Secretary was said to be hurt and angry at what one friend described as an 'abuse of her trust' by her husband, David Mills. She discovered only through a Whitehall inquiry into her own conduct that her husband had omitted to tell her all the details about his work and the now infamous £350,000 present he received from an Italian businessman.

The couple, who have been married for almost 27 years and have two grown-up children, announced yesterday through Mills's solicitor, David Kirk, that they were separating after allegations over his business interests put their relationship under 'dreadful strain'.

The news comes as fresh details have emerged of profits made by Mills on shares in a pub chain while his wife was involved in a government review of the licensing laws.

Friends said the marriage had been rocky for some months as Italian investigating magistrates pursued allegations - denied by Mills - that he had received £350,000 from his former client, the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, for giving testimony to a Milan court that helped the embattled leader.

Jowell was implicated when it emerged last week that she had co-signed for a mortgage on their family home, later paid off with money that had been channelled through a number of offshore accounts. Mills insists the money came from another Italian businessman.  . . .

It is understood Jowell was particularly angry over the publication last Thursday of a letter from her husband to the authorities in Dubai in which he argues that he should be allowed to practise law there and mentions that he is married to a cabinet minister and has the support of the Prime Minister. Jowell had apparently not known about the letter, which was crucial because it drew Tony Blair into the row, until its contents appeared in newspapers.

New facts are also understood to have come to light about the £350,000 gift only during last week's inquiry led by the Cabinet Secretary, Gus O'Donnell.

'New correspondence which she was unaware of would suggest that the information that he has given the legal process and her may not be inaccurate, but was not complete,' said a friend, adding that Jowell had subsequently become anxious there might be more to come out.

The friend said: 'She now knows how much she didn't know about these two or three things: what are the other things she doesn't know about?'

– The Observer, March 5, 2006 via guardianunlimited.com.