In the plush ballroom of Boston's Park Plaza Hotel and amid calls for "four more years," Acting Governor A. Paul Cellucci's campaign celebrated his gubernatorial victory last night as red, white and blue balloons cascaded down.

In a win that Cellucci proclaimed a watershed victory, Massachusetts voters, many of whom remained undecided until election day, chose to vote with their pocketbooks and play it safe.

While L. Scott Harshbarger '64, a

former Harvard running back, promised that he was going to pull off an upset victory similar to his successful 1990 bid for attorney general, it was Cellucci, a Boston College alum, who squeaked out a two percent win.

"We knew it was going to be a fight, but this [was] a dogfight," said Antrobus, Cellucci's press secretary.

Although the race remained acrimonious throughout, with a slew of negative advertisements and debates that degenerated into shouting matches, the candidates' platforms were remarkably similar.

In Cellucci's victory speech, he emphasized economic strength and also stressed education and health care issues.

"No matter where you live or what your philosophical beliefs, we all probably want the same thing: A good life for your children and the community where you live," Cellucci said in his victory speech last night.

Harshbarger also focused on education, but in the end, while voters obviously cared about education, they felt safe enough with Cellucci to maintain the status quo.

The only major difference between the two candidates is that Cellucci said he supports the death penalty while Harshbarger opposes it.

The Bay State's political past at times threatened to engulf both candidates, with Cellucci branding Harshbarger a Dukakis-style tax and spend liberal and Harshbarger accusing Cellucci of riding the coattails of former governor William F. Weld '66.

Jane Swift, Cellucci's running mate as the democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, also harking back to the theme of the Dukakis years.

"During the last eight years, life has gotten better," she said at last night's celebration.

"Today our taxes are low, unemployment has decreased and businesses are prospering," she said.

Despite Harshbarger's pledge to keep the state's budget balanced, his failure to take a no-new taxes pledge was a political gold mine for Cellucci.

It gave credence to Massachusetts voters' fear that Harshbarger is a tax-and-spend liberal in moderate clothing.