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Jane Swift

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U.S. Governor

The Resume

    (February 24, 1965- )
    Born in North Adams, Massachusetts
    Middle name is Maria
    Governor of Massachusetts (April 10, 2001–January 2, 2003)
    Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts (January 7, 1999–January 2, 2003)
    Massachusetts State Senator (January 3, 1991–January 3, 1997)
    Republican

Why she might be annoying:

    She became acting governor only when incumbent Paul Cellucci was appointed Ambassador to Canada for the Bush administration.
    She wore a black beret to South Boston’s St. Patrick's Day breakfast as a joke over her resembling Monica Lewinsky.
    She was hit with ethics complaints for using a state helicopter to travel for a visit to her fourteen month-old daughter and for using government aides for babysitting services.
    The negative blowback led to her getting hit with the nicknames ‘Chopper Mom’ and ‘The Leona Helmsley of Massachusetts politics.’
    The controversy even led to Democratic activists making buttons that read: ‘It takes an ENTIRE State Government to raise a child’ (in reference to the Clinton line ‘It takes a village’).
    She was initially defiant over the criticism, but apologized after it became clear that working moms took more issue with it than conservative chauvinists even did.
    Her slow sink in popularity led state Republicans to successfully convince her to step down and allow Mitt Romney to run for the nomination in 2002 (he went on to win in the general).

Why she might not be annoying:

    She was the youngest woman ever elected to the Massachusetts Senate.
    She had worked in both the state's consumer affairs department and Port Authority before being tapped to be Cellucci's running mate.
    She was the first woman to serve as acting Governor of Massachusetts.
    She made history after giving birth to twins a month into her gubernatorial tenure.
    She was subjected to scrutiny over her giving birth just three weeks before getting elected to Lieutenant Governor.
    She was instrumental in the passage of the Education Reform Act of 1993, one of the first statewide programs for assessing academic performance.
    She earned widespread praise for her handling domestic crises that sprang in the immediate aftermath of the September 11th terror attacks in 2001.
    She decried criticism of then-vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin being a working mother as sexist in 2008.

Credit: BoyWithTheGreenHair


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 2 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2023, Out of 7 Votes: 100% Annoying