How's this for a case of strange bedfellows? Sealy Mattress landed a plum marketing deal last June: The bedding giant was named the official mattress supplier for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. Under the deal, Sealy was to provide 5,000 mattresses for athletes in the Olympic villages and training centers. The arrangement also was good for Olympic chief and gubernatorial candidate Mitt [ROMNEY]. He and his former colleagues at Bain Capital, a Boston investment firm, are Sealy's majority owners. They took a stake in the company in 1997, with plans to eventually resell it or take it public at a large profit. Three Bain partners sit on the board of the company, which is based in Trinity, N.C. Sealy pays Bain $2 million a year in management fees. Romney had to give up his partner status at Bain Capital when he left in 1999 to help save the scandal-ridden Olympics. But when the firm cashes in on deals done in the Romney era, so does the would-be governor.

It already seemed implausible that Romney, the moderate Mormon would join forces with Patrick C. Guerriero, even though [Jane Swift] encouraged the alliance with her openly gay former running mate when she announced she was stepping out of the governor's race. But Romney, asked during his campaign announcement in Belmont whether he would consider Guerriero as his running mate, could barely remember the former Melrose mayor's name. "At this stage I'm focusing on my race and I haven't had a conversation in person with Jim Rappaport or . . . ah, uh, with Mr. Guerriero, and I intend to be able to do so in the near future."