ew England delegates at the Republican National Convention had a rip-roaring party Tuesday night at the Hard Rock Cafe in Philadelphia, but the sight of the boogie brigade on the dance floor left Jan Cellucci shaking her head.
She and her husband, Governor Paul Cellucci, had made the requisite guest appearance, but they left just as the dance floor heated up.
It was none too soon for Mrs. Cellucci. After watching a series of awkward gyrations, the type that would never make the cut on ''American Bandstand,'' she was heard by a party source as saying, ''I hate to watch Republicans dance.''
In quest of a historical excuse for some of the reports on Swift ...
The report last week by Globe columnist Brian Mooney that Lieutenant Governor Jane Swift often does not put in a full week for her public paycheck, with abbreviated work weeks and questionable junkets, might prompt her to seek a novel defense.
If she does, she might look to Calvin Coolidge, who held the same office from 1916 to 1919. As the oft-told story goes, Coolidge was seated at a dinner party next to a woman who did not know him. ''And what do you do for a living?'' she inquired. ''I'm lieutenant governor of Massachusetts,'' he said. ''Oh,'' she exclaimed, ''tell me all about it.'' Replied Silent Cal: ''I just did.''
... and for Moakley's 'girls' remark
Meanwhile, when Swift was quoted as saying she was enjoying a chance to schmooze with ''the girls'' - her fellow female pols - at the Republican National Convention, US Representative J. Joseph Moakley engaged in some bemused head-scratching. The dean of the Massachusetts congressional delegation, after all, had been lambasted by Swift and Governor Paul Cellucci last year when he referred to Virginia Buckingham, the governor's designee to head the Massachusetts Port Authority, as ''a girl.'' ''Inexcusable'' and ''revealing,'' Swift chided Moakley.
This summer reading isn't intended for councilors' beachgoing tote bags
Summer reading should be far more soothing than the tomes being circulated at City Hall this year. City councilors, who are accustomed to taking it easy during nonelection-year summers, last week got the complex, 25-page Red Sox bill dumped on them, just after the Boston Redevelopment Authority weighed in with its phone-book-sized Municipal Harbor Plan. The BRA plan picked up few avid readers, as Councilor Paul Scapicchio(North End) made clear at a hearing last week by begging for a more concise executive summary. Councilor Maura A. Hennigan (Jamaica Plain) was even more plain: ''I've tried three times to read it. And I fall asleep every time.''
Eminent precedent for taking land
Such lofty objections are being offered against the use of eminent domain in the City Council debate over a new Fenway Park that it's tempting to forget that the council rubber-stamped similar land takings two years ago - albeit for a public venture. Council President James M. Kelly vehemently explained Wednesday ''why I will not vote to take private property for eminent domain.'' In 1998, however, the vote was unanimous when land was taken for a new Convention Center in Kelly's district of South Boston. Of course, then, Kelly extracted a promise that his district would benefit mightily from linkage and community benefits from surrounding development.
Mass. Hospital Association pays for some top-shelf state help
The Massachusetts Hospital Association hired some high-powered talent in the first six months of this year to help navigate the legislative and bureaucratic maze. The group spent more than $200,000 on lobbying and consulting fees, mostly in connection with managed-care reform legislation and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care's brief period in receivership, according to reports filed with the secretary of state's office. Among those who were hired: Capital Consulting, the firm of former House speaker Charles Flaherty($15,000), and the law firm of Foley Hoag & Eliot ($21,000). Foley Hoag's Gloria Larson, chairwoman of the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority and a Cabinet member under former governor William Weld, served on the association's legal advisory team concerning Harvard Pilgrim. Flaherty provided ''strategic consulting'' services on health care finance and reform, MHA reported. Who knew Charlie had such technical expertise?
And for the record ... What record?
House leaders can punish and mock dissident Representative Christopher Hodgkins, deny him a chairmanship and stall his bills, but they cannot make his words of protest disappear. Or maybe they can. At a lengthy debating session Monday on the budget, House Minority Leader Francis Marini took to the floor to debate a plan to extend deliberations into the late evening. Hodgkins rose and loudly complimented Marini, a sometimes sheepish follower of Thomas M. Finneran, for finally standing up and opposing the speaker.
''It took until the last day of the session, but I'm glad to see Representative Marini is finally willing to act like the minority leader,'' Hodgkins remarked. Marini called the remarks ''demeaning and impolite'' and asked Hodgkins to withdraw them. House Majority Leader William Nagle declared that the comments would be struck.
For the weary State House scribes, a press release worth some attention
The ever-industrious, some would say ubiquitous, publicity machine of state Senator Cheryl A. Jacques rained yet another news release last week on the flooded desks of the State House press corps. The hard-working Needham Democrat, however, deserves credit for this one: an award from the National Legislative Program Evaluation Society for the substantive changes wrought in the Massachusetts arrest-warrant program by the Senate Post Audit and Oversight Bureau, which Jacques chairs.
Glen Johnson, Stephanie Ebbert, Brian C. Mooney, Brian MacQuarrie, Walter V. Robinson, and Carolyn Ryan of the Globe Staff contributed to this report.
