On the heels of the elusive Maura Healey
She was not with me. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
I want to get in front of any rumors that may be swirling about my relationship with the governor (strictly professional): we did not secretly meet during the four days in February that she was unaccountably missing from the State House.
She’s not talking about it, and neither am I.
My critics may leap on the fact that I, like Healey, am unmarried and live alone in a four-bedroom house in the suburbs, as Healey does in Arlington.
True, we both work at the State House and have been known to rub shoulders, so to speak. But there was no dinner or dancing.
The last woman I took to dinner was at Anthony’s Pier Four before it was crushed by Seaport madness.
The difference between us is that Healey has a partner, Joanna Lydgate, and I do not.
I could have a companion, but most women I know of my era and age are overloaded with baggage, like me. Besides, I am married to my job. (Editor, please note.)
It’s also true that I have been fair, balanced and understanding when writing about Healey and the insurmountable problems of illegal immigration and housing she is facing.
But she is gay, the first openly gay governor in Massachusetts, which is fine, and I am straight. I do have gay friends, though.
Still, inquiring Boston Globe newspaper minds at the State House want to know where Healey spent four days out of state on a “personal trip” during which state power was transferred to Secretary of State Billy Galvin. (Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll was not around either.)
They will get nothing out of me.
Funny thing, though, is that Healey, unlike past governors, told reporters that she would not reveal her travel schedule in advance because of security concerns.
Now she won’t even talk about it after she comes back. It’s nobody’s business. “My personal life is my personal life,” she said. Way to go.
But the Boston Globe is upset, and soon the paper’s investigative Spotlight team will be on the case. Spotlight is seeking to win the coveted 2024 Pizzuti
Prize, named after Linda Pizzuti. She runs the Globe, which is owned by her husband John Henry, who also owns the Boston Red Sox.
The Pizzuti Prize replaces the disgraced Pulitzer Prize which is annually awarded to reporters who make up stories about Donald Trump.
The Globe does not make up stories about Trump; it just slants them.
Healey’s State House problem comes down to when she was attorney general and worked out of the nearby high rise, vertical McCormack Building.
She was driven daily into the subterranean garage and whisked up the elevator to her office, without seeing anybody, including reporters.
As attorney general she quietly came and went as she pleased. Her privacy was secure. Besides no one cared if she was in state or not.
The State House is different. It is an open horizontal five story building with wide open corridors busy with pols, people and reporters. The governor cannot come and go as she pleases without being seen.
The governor takes a public elevator with other people to the corridor outside her office where, like Joe Biden on the tarmac, she sometimes takes questions. Her privacy is limited. And she no longer comes and goes without everybody noticing.
Of the dozen or so governors I have known and/or covered over the years, Healey is the most elusive.
If Haley wants privacy on Beacon Hill, she should imitate the late Democrat Gov. Edward J. King. Unlike his predecessors, or successors, King who governed from 1979 to 1983, he used to quietly come into the empty State House alone on Saturdays. Nobody knew about it.
I did. I used to secretly meet with him there with no one around — no aides, no lobbyists, no legislators, no reporters. Just me. He was a workaholic who alone on a Saturday morning got things done. And I got stories.
Healey should take notice. Maybe we could meet there.