Mihos remark on Healey's hero mystifies her campaign

It was one of the more memorable moments of the Sept. 25 debate: Independent Christy Mihos teased Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey for allegedly having called former acting governor Jane Swift her ``hero."

Mihos made the remark as he ranted against Swift for axing him from the Turnpike Authority. For Mihos, who clearly considers Swift a political nemesis, likening Healey to her was meant as an insult.

``You're my hero, Christy," Healey shot back dryly. ``You're my hero."

A search of newspaper archives produced no record of the hero remark, however, and the Healey campaign said it had no idea what Mihos was talking about.

But Mihos, through a spokeswoman, contended that he personally heard Healey make the comment on at least one occasion at a Republican fund-raiser in 2001, when Healey was chairwoman of the state party.

``He has a clear recollection of her saying it," spokeswoman Nicole Nionakis said late last week. Mihos couldn't recall the context, she said.

Healey campaign manager Tim O'Brien said in an e-mail that Mihos is misinformed if he's trying to link Healey with Swift.

``We know in 1999 Christy wasn't paying too much attention to cost overruns and construction quality at the Big Dig," O'Brien said by e-mail. ``Apparently he wasn't paying too much attention either in 2002 when Kerry Healey and Mitt Romney pushed Jane Swift out of the governor's office by criticizing her tenure."

Scott Helman

Where's Reilly?

Where's Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly?

Healey has used old Reilly quotes in two of her ads to hit Deval L. Patrick. One Healey ad repeated Reilly's allegation that Patrick is ``soft on crime," and another plays a Sept. 14 video clip of Reilly criticizing Patrick's stances on crime and taxes. With those positions, Reilly said in the clip, ``I just don't see how you get elected governor."

Reilly has yet to appear publicly with Patrick. On the night Patrick won the Sept. 19 primary, businessman Christopher F. Gabrieli joined the nominee on stage. But no Reilly.

So just where is he? The Steadfast Correspondent blog from Watertown reported seeing Reilly -- or at least that's who the blogger thought it was -- walking on a path along the Charles River on the evening of the Sept. 25 debate. ``He was wearing a State Police jump suit and he was walking by himself," the correspondent wrote.

Reilly's aides said he has been spending some time with his family on the Cape since the primary. They noted that top Reilly fund-raisers, including Alan Solomont, immediately joined the Patrick bandwagon.

Andrea Estes

He declines to support wine

Independent candidate for governor Christy Mihos, who owns 10 Christy's convenience stores on the Cape, might benefit from the passage of Question One on the ballot. The question would make it easier for chain stores and supermarkets to sell wine by creating a new class of liquor licenses for food stores that want to carry wine. It also would end the state's prohibition for any individual or corporation to hold more than three liquor licenses.

But while big chain stores like Stop & Shop and Whole Foods have ponied up big bucks in favor of the question, Mihos hasn't dropped a dime. Carolyn Kain, Mihos's campaign manager, said that's because Mihos opposes Question One.

``He thinks that if they're going to do it, it should be opened up to liquor as well, not only wine," she said last week. ``. . . It's just an issue of fairness."

Lisa Wangsness

Insiders lend a hand to Patrick

Deval L. Patrick, the outsider, is raising more money, and some of it is coming from the state's insiders.

Supporters of the Democratic nominee have formed a ``Lawyers Committee" for Patrick and are asking for up to $6,000 from donors.

An Oct. 30 fund-raiser will feature Jamie Gorelick, a former deputy US attorney general; Harvard professor Charles Ogletree; and Scott Harshbarger, former state attorney general. Others on the host committee include Donald Stern, former US attorney, and Boston lawyers William Cowan and Nick Littlefield.

Short takes

The next gubernatorial debate is slated for Tuesday in Springfield. It is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. and will be carried by New England Cable News and WGBH-TV. . . . Healey has the support of 37 percent of people who say they go to religious services weekly, compared with 43 percent supporting Patrick, according to the latest Globe-CBS4 poll . . . Overall, 27 percent of those questioned say they attend religious services once a week, 20 percent said they attend monthly, 32 percent said they go a few times a year, and 21 percent they never attend.

E-mail the Globe's political staff at masspolitics@globe.com.