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By Root 566 0

better from me. I had turned fifty that year, and Diane had thrown a wonderful party for me in July. She also planned a family trip to South Africa over Christmas (a major undertaking that was shortened because of our victory). Diane’s birthday came in December, in the midst of the transition and shortly before we were to leave for South Africa. It was on a Sunday. I envisioned a quiet day with the family and did not make any other plans. On our way home from services at Memorial Church in Harvard Yard, I asked Diane what she wanted to do. It was the wrong question. Given all of her sacrifices over the previous two years, she was sure I had organized something to make this day extra special. She started to cry. My apologies fell on deaf ears and damp cheeks.

I tried to convince myself that things would improve once we moved into our jobs as governor and first lady, when we could focus on getting things done rather than the hype of the campaign. But we were at the center of high political drama: a black man had just come from nowhere to win a decisive victory with a promise to change Beacon Hill, and the pundits and pollsters appreciated even better than I how formidable a task lay ahead of me. The fish bowl would only get smaller, the pressures greater. The same “wise guys” who had said I couldn’t win were now saying I couldn’t govern.

Several weeks after the election, Diane and I went to a seminar at the Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia for new governors from across the country. We were to learn how to make the transition from running a campaign to running a state. The “first spouses” were also there for guidance. For Diane, it was all very strange. She attended seminars on how to dress for television (avoid stripes and polka dots) and how to conduct yourself in interviews (stick to the script). Mock interviews were filmed and analyzed. There were sessions on how the first spouse should raise money for the state mansion and how to manage a household staff. Well, Massachusetts has no governor’s residence, and Diane had no plans to assemble a staff of any kind.

Other spouses told Diane that her new responsibilities would force her to leave her job, but she explained that she thoroughly enjoyed her job. “Believe me, honey,” someone said, “within a year you won’t be working anymore.” At the very least, Diane was informed, she would need to hire a chief of staff to help with everything from scheduling to fielding the daily barrage of requests and inquiries that would now be part of her life to sending out Christmas cards.

Already shaky from the campaign, Diane had even more reason to feel overwhelmed. Several weeks later, she took the advice she had received from experienced spouses and hired a chief of staff. Amy Gorin, an old and trusted friend who had been the cochair of my campaign, had already traveled extensively with Diane and knew her well. Diane trusted her. The move seemed unexceptional—if the first lady of Guam had a chief of staff, why wouldn’t the first lady of Massachusetts?

If only it had been that simple. The next thing we knew, Diane was getting pummeled by the press. She was cast as a spoiled brat, a high-paid lawyer who felt so entitled that she could use state money to get someone to write her letters. She felt she had no way to defend herself. That controversy came on the heels of the media’s scolding me for trying to furnish the office properly (when I arrived, the furniture consisted of a desk whose handles came off when you pulled them and a table with a broken leg; hardly suitable for projecting a positive image of the state, I thought) and for leasing a Cadillac (the same car nearly every governor east of the Mississippi drove; the Herald’s description of the car as “tricked-out” struck some people, including Diane, as racist).

I paid for the office furnishings and the car out of my own pocket. Diane let her chief of staff go and assumed all the responsibilities of first lady on her own. Grudgingly, the items left the news, but not before the media had a field day—“Coupe Deval” and “Together