Better Than a Party At the Currier 10-Man

While candidates cherished last night's post-primary rallies as an opportunity for free television time to air their views, campaign contributors and volunteers wanted to eat and be merry.

With guests clad in suits and jazz music piping in the background, the Weld gathering in the Georgian Ballroom of the Park Plaza Hotel on Boston Common seemed more like a cocktail party than a post-primary celebration.

A staffer for Suffolk County District Attorney Ralph Martin 2d, who requested anonymity after breaking away from Martin's party elsewhere in the hotel to eat at Weld's buffet, said the governor's shindig was festive but not too wild. "This party is a Republican party," she said.

Filomena M. Santos, a bartender of the Park Plaza Hotel, said the mood was business-like.

"People aren't drinking much because tomorrow's a work day," she said.

Kennedy's rally was held at the Three Cheers Bar near South Station. There, bartenders were busy checking identification before serving alcohol. "This is the toughest bar I've ever been to," said one Boston University student, who wished to remain anonymous.

Despite "No Smoking" signs and the Senator's support for increased tobacco regulation, the upper level of Three Cheers recked from both standard and clove cigarettes, and ashes covered the carpeted floor.

Weld offered the night's best food. Media types and supporters farnished by a long day working the polls feasted on a spread set across one entire side of the Georgian Ballmom. They ate grilled Cajun chicken breast in a cream sauce, beef and vegetable kabobs and rumaki--which consists of a piece of chicken liver and a slice of a water chestnut, wrapped in bacon. Snickers had the opportunity to give on blue, red, and yellow tortilla chips, gus-camole, black bees sales, tomato sales, cheese, crackers, vegetables and dips.

Rotnney's buffet was equally grand and in true Republican form, emphasized red meat. At a carving station, a chef sliced roast beef. Three slices were available.

The party headed by Roosevelt, whose campaign is virtually broke, it was significantly more spartan. The Democratic gubernatorial nominee offered only corn chips and new vegetables to exhausted campaign staffers and volunteers.

Unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate Michael J. Barrett '70 didn't even bother with food. Of course, at the ballroom of the Royal Soneta Hotel in east Cambridge, there was a very little to celebrate.