Bill Weld Infuses Accomplishment With A Shot Of Fun
BOSTON - Gov. William Weld might not be Jesse Helms' kind of guy, but he is extremely popular in Massachusetts, where Republicans are almost as rare as Red Sox pennants.
Weld, whose nomination to be ambassador to Mexico is being challenged by the powerful chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is "a little too loose with his lips" for Helms' conservative wing of the party.
Indeed, Weld is pretty quick with a quip. The son of early colonial settlers, he is the kind of guy to say that his family came to the United States "with nothing but the shirts on our back - and 300 pounds of gold."
Weld can quote the classics in Latin. Then, just as easily, the 51-year-old father of five teenagers can rattle off his favorite Grateful Dead lyrics or spell out the elements of a proper corner shot in pool.
His popularity
It is that carefree spirit that has made the Republican popular with Massachusetts voters. He was re-elected in 1994 with 69 percent of the vote, a record in Massachusetts. A recent poll showed his favorability rating still over 70 percent.
When Michael Dukakis left the governor's office in 1991, he was a pariah even though he had been the Democratic nominee for president just two years earlier. The "Massachusetts Miracle" had gone bust, and voters had digested their fill of Dukakis' buttoned-down image.
Along came Weld, a 6-foot-3 redhead who adroitly balanced his high patrician breeding with a carefully cultivated common touch.
His Harvard education, Cambridge address and steadfast no-new-taxes pledge made him a darling of the high-society set. His fondness for Jack Daniels, his crackdown on welfare abuse and a widely photographed swan dive into the Charles River endeared him to working people.
Weld has described himself as a fiscal conservative and social liberal.
He has not always been a winner. He failed in a campaign for attorney general in 1978 before beating John Silber for the governor's office in 1990.
His fiscal stands
Weld helped bring Massachusetts from a $2.3 billion deficit he inherited from Dukakis, something that left the state demoralized as well as broke. His steadfast refusal to raise taxes changed the equation in the Statehouse, a place where legislators used to institute programs and then raise taxes to pay for them.
Over time, he signed into law 19 tax cuts, a $1.3 billion education-reform act and legislation that served as a model for federal welfare reforms. The state's rainy-day fund, empty when Weld took office, is expected to hold more than $800 million by year's end.
He briefly considered running for president in 1996. Instead, he opted to run for the Senate, losing to Democratic Sen. John Kerry.
Afterward, he quipped: "It was not my first defeat. There was the Rhodes scholarship. The Marshall scholarship. Harvard Law Review. My life is a tangled wreck of failures."
His social stands
On social issues, Weld supports abortion rights, gay rights and medical use of marijuana. Those positions have brought him into conflict with other Republicans, including Helms.
Critics continue to say he balanced the state's budget on the backs of the poor. And state Republicans complain that he failed to cultivate his own party. There are now fewer Republicans in both the state House and Senate than when he took office.
But Weld became a popular figure mainly because he had the quick smile and a ruling-class temperament that Massachusetts residents appreciate in their politicians.