As you may know, MA GOP chairman Bob Maginn decided not to run for reelection to his post because, in his words, “I have not heard the voice of the Lord calling me to seek reelection as chairman of the Massachusetts Republican Party at this time.” This is a pity, since Maginn presided over one of the greatest shellackings the Mass. GOP has seen in a long time – exceeding even the blowout of November 2010, when they lost every federal and statewide race but at least managed to pick up a few state rep seats.
Anyway, to my knowledge, the two major candidates for the post are Kirsten Hughes, a Quincy city councillor and former Scott Brown mid-level campaign staffer whose candidacy Brown has enthusiastically endorsed, and Rick Green, a business owner and GOP state committee member who also runs an outfit called the “Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance.”
Interestingly, Brown’s endorsement of Hughes appears to having almost zero impact among the GOP’s elected officials. Green has just announced a number of endorsements from Republican elected officials, whereas Hughes’s sole endorsement from a sitting elected official (aside from Brown, who won’t be sitting for long) is State Senator Richard Ross. Even more interestingly, one of Green’s endorsements is noted BMGer Rep. Dan Winslow (R-Norfolk), who served as Brown’s chief campaign counsel and who was advertising Brown as a headliner at his fundraiser just a couple of weeks ago. Et tu, Dan?
It would seem that the state’s most prominent elected Republican and “de facto leader of this party” doesn’t hold much sway over his less famous colleagues.
the Mass GOP, but they seem like a funny organization. Kerry Healey’s husband bought her the chair one year, and Mercy Otis and Peter Porcupine have been known to use BMG to launch intra-party attacks on individual candidates.
The Mass GOP kind of like a reality show about a right-wing boutique where all the employees are fighting over who gets to be the next assistant manager.
When was this supposed to have happened? I posted attacks on Republicans on BMG???
FWIW, all the endorsements are valueless. The electorate is less than 80 people and who among elected officials do and do not endorse is pretty irrelevant. Those who waste time broadcasting ‘events’ and ‘support’ only betray their lack of understanding of the SC election process, which is not usually a good harbinger of how they would help run REAL campaigns.
I believe you brought Mass GOP in fighting to BMG. If I’m mistaken, I apologize. Mercy Otis, whom you may know, has done so more recently.
Think you’ve got a typo there.
Endorsements may have limited value, but I’d stop well short of saying those who bother mentioning their endorsements and support are betraying a lack of understanding. (If, for example, you don’t think union endorsements matter at all, you probably don’t have a ton of experience working in a Democratic primary in Massachusetts.)
All candidates talk about who supports them, both winners and losers. I’m more suspicious of candidates who spend their time and energy whining about other people’s endorsements and support — or trying to hide some of their political backers, as Scott Brown trying to market himself as not really Republican — than those who are proud of their backers.
Doubtless you criticized someone who is a Republican. Democrats do this to demonstrate their noble commitment to democratic debate; Republicans engage in “infighting.”
to me Dad, I’m not kidding. BMG decorum prevents me from naming names, but suffice it to say that Mercy Otis is a Mass GOP insider. Looks like “infighting” to me.
This guy sounds like the head of the Mississippi Republican Party. Is he being ironical? Personally, I have not heard the voice of the Lord calling me to support election of anyone from the Massachusetts Republican Party in a long time.
I know both candidates for GOP Chair and both have commendable strengths. Kirsten was the Deputy Finance Chair for Senator Brown’s most recent campaign and helped raise more than $38 million for his effort. She would bring that considerable talent to future election efforts. Rick is a self-made businessperson, in the Ray Shamie mold, who would has organizational strengths and ability to reestablish the GOP brand as the Party of Lincoln. My Dream Team would be a GOP Committee ticket where Green and Hughes team up and each bring their strengths to rebuild our Party. The divergent support for each within our Party ranks reflects an internal (and healthy) debate by the MassGOP whether we embrace a top-down approach that emphasizes fundraising or a bottom-up approach that emphasizes organization and building our grassroots. As a former member of Ray Shamie’s senior team (I served as his General Counsel during his successful Chairmanship) I am partial to the organizational bottom-up model that relies on executive ability that Rick Green brings to the table. (Much like the proven executive ability by another businessperson turned politico, John Walsh). We’ve tried the top-down approach in the recent past and neither the Lord nor voters were impressed. As for Senator Brown, who I support 100% and hope he runs in the event of a Kerry vacancy, he never has requested or desired to be surrounded by yesmen as a measure of his credibility. He is and remains the most important force in Massachusetts GOP politics and it’s to his credit that he and others can have different points of view on the next direction of the GOP leadership. As PP noted, I don’t have a vote in this decision. But any GOP candidate who may appear on the 2014 ballot certainly will have a stake in the outcome. That’s why I have enthusiastically endorsed Rick Green for Massachusetts GOP Party Chair.
As in Abe Lincoln? The Republican Party? That ship sailed with Dick Nixon, and it ain’t ever coming back. It doesn’t matter what the New England+NY+NJ Republicans do… the GOP is defined by suburban and rural voters of the Southeast and the Plains, since they’re the ones generating the vast majority of your US Senators, Reps, governors, electoral votes, and so forth. Nobody thinks every Republican is a racist, or that there aren’t racist Democrats. However, there is 40 years worth of built in expectation that the GOP uses racism in a structured and systematic way. In addition to the Becks and the Limbaughs and the O’Reillys of the world, you’ve got all this imagery, and the fact is, regardless of the political party or level of activity of the creator of the following images, they’ve helped ensure the viewpoint that the Republican Party is structurally racist.
The GOP may not have supplanted the Dixiecrats as the party of racism until Nixon, but I think the GOP ceased being the “Party of Lincoln” in any meaningful sense within just a few years of his death. Just after his reelection, Lincoln wrote:
—Letter from Abraham Lincoln to Col. William F. Elkins, Nov. 21, 1864
Bringing that fear to life became the raison d’etre for the “Party of Lincoln” by 1870 at the latest. After the mid-1870s the GOP was good for only a few token gestures to civil rights. More like the “Party of Harding and Coolidge.”
These images are offensive and racist and have no part in any credible public discussion of politics. I’m happy to discuss the underlying principles of the GOP and the different political philosophies of the Democrats and Republicans that inform our different approaches to solving problems. (See, most recently, my discussion in Lexington with John Walsh http://vp.telvue.com/preview?id=T01123&video=136438). All Americans share the same basic goals, and I believe we benefit from informed debate about the different and best paths to acheive them. In Massachusetts, it is important that we develop more than the one path currently available to us in state government.
This BMGer appreciates your input and discussion here. I’d also agree with you that a Shamie approach worked for a bit in the early 90s and could
work again. Walsh is a genius and he took a stagnant an complacent office and made it a grassroots powerhouse, it was largely responsible for MA stemming the “red tide” in 2010. The Baker-Tisei operation was top down and hurt the ticket across the board, also he would have benefitted from a true primary against Mihos.
Rep. Winslow, I have not met you, but I have gained great respect for your contributions to BMG and for at least some of your work in the General Court, particularly on H4252. I don’t think I share many of your other political views but you strike me as a decent and reasonable man.
But you cannot escape the simple fact that “these images” are out there, in the political realm, and put there by supporters (and, in some cases, activists) of the party with which you choose to affiliate. That they “are offensive and racist and have no part in any credible public discussion of politics” is precisely stomv’s point.
There was a long time when the Democratic Party bore the burden of such racism within its ranks. By the 1924 convention that party was bitterly divided between its Southern, rural, Protestant and largely racist wing, and its Northern, urban, immigrant, largely Catholic wing. With the nomination of Al Smith and through the efforts of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, the Kennedys and Lyndon Johnson, the Democratic Party rejected its 19th-century position and cast its lot with racial justice.
Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Lee Atwater were all too happy to occupy the abandoned territory. The Republican Party, the one you may have grown up with, is not today the Party of Lincoln or of Eisenhower. It’s not even, nationally, the Party of Reagan anymore. It’s the party of Bush II, Cheney, Rove, Bachmann, Santorum, Ryan, Cantor, Cain, Gingrich, Akin, Murdock, Steve King, Paul Broun, Louie Gohmert, Inhofe, Demint, Palin, Limbaugh, Hannity, O’Reilly, Coulter and Savage. Here in Massachusetts the GOP might not stoop so low, but you choose to be part of that party.
As for state government, every couple of years you have the chance to present your vision to the voters in 200 Massachusetts legislative districts. Some of you, like yourself, actually win. But I’ve read your platform and we’ve already tried most of that. It was called the Gilded Age.
It’s difficult to tell where the underlying principles of the GOP leve offand the actual racism begins… Perhaps you slept through last fall when your candidate made unwarranted and racist accusations a centerpiece of his campaign.
The conversation would be a far sight more credible if you would man up and tell the people actually making and holding up the signs, as well as casting aspersion son Cherokee DNA, that they are offensive and racist, rather than trying to shush those of use who are trying to do that very thing.
The entire campaign was racist, from the primaries onward. Not just racist, but sexist and misogynist as well. The dog-whistles, directed towards every “ethnic voter” imaginable, were deafening.
Your comment is spot-on, and if anything understates the awful reality.
I understand your point stomv but it could have been made without republishing this garbage and having it take up so much of the thread. I am 100% sure you do not agree with any of these images but reposting them here gives voice to an element of our society that should frankly be ignored or silenced.
You’re damned right they’re offensive. Ignoring them doesn’t make them — or the hate or hurt — go away. It may be the polite thing to do, but frankly, politeness isn’t my first priority.
You [the GOP] don’t get to claim a tack back to the Party of Lincoln with that crap out there.
Your comment reminds me of the cries to not talk about gun control immediately after innocents get gunned down, because it politicizes a tragedy. Nonsense. Want to reduce the shootings? Have political conversations about guns. Want to reduce racism and bigotry in our politics? Have political conversations about the racism and bigotry, no matter how offensive.
I’m not interested in ignoring or silencing that part of society. I’m interested in bringing it out in the open, in the hopes that a portion of that part of society gains enlightenment and we move forward. In my opinion, that isn’t going to happen by ignoring the problem or silencing those folks. Open, honest discussion might help though. That’s my view, anyway.
I am not a Republican, I back your position regarding Sandy Hook and politicizing tragedy and agree the GOP has a racist legacy to contend with. The party of Lincoln becoming the party of Thurmond was unthinkable, even within the conservative wings of that party, not that long ago (Dirksen and Taft were both on the right and strong civil rights supporters as was the father of their last nominee). But it made this transformation and that kind of hatred and bigotry was common in parts of the country. My point is we know these images are there and reposting them, to me anyway, seems to legitimize them.
I know you’re not a Republican, and don’t mean to suggest you had/have a particular position on Sandy Hook and guns — merely trying to point out what I view as the similarities between the two positions.
I think ignoring racism serves to legitimize, normalize, or otherwise accept it. In my view, you bring it to daylight. It’s OK that we disagree on this… it’s obviously a difficult topic.
AMEN!
I think stomv did exactly the right thing, and I’m glad he did.
John Kerry tried to ignore the Swift Boat crowd, and lost an election he could have won. Democrats and progressives have tried to ignore these racist thugs for years, and they now own and control the GOP.
I agree that this “element of our society” should be firmly excluded from the political process. I also think the onus is VERY MUCH on the GOP to take the lead in that, just as the Democratic Party took the lead in rejecting the same cancer — at great political cost — in 1968.
There are times when lynch-mobs like this need to be firmly, emphatically, and unambiguously stopped. Silence is all-too-easily interpreted as tolerance — or worse — agreement.
These images were widely reported elsewhere, I find them utterly repugnant and offensive on this thread and urge the editors to take them down. Such filth has no place on this forum no matter the context.
…just as I asked BostonShepherd on another thread not to pin an absolutely appalling call by someone to kill deniers of global warming on SomervilleTom (or any of us for that matter) I think we also should not pin these also appalling sentiments on Dan Winslow or most GOP officials.
when it came to criticize the images or comments made by their members. We’ve seen this over and over again, with birtherism, with recorded comments at town hall type events, with Scott Brown, “as you can see” himself.
I don’t expect Rep Winslow to run around wagging his finger at every bit of politically related racism or bigotry. At the same time, in my view Rep Winslow and the Republican Party can’t on one hand
while on the other hand taking a passive approach to the nasty rhetoric and imagery pointed at his political opponent. The GOP officials have made a tacit decision to keep their disapproval of these kinds of images and comments rather quiet, and as a result, fair or foul, there ain’t no way that the GOP will be able to convince voters that they’re the “party of Lincoln” in any meaningful way for the foreseeable future.
Have you forgotten the insulting “war whoops” by staffers of Mr. Winslow’s candidate, Scott Brown?
Same circus, different clowns.
Sorry, Christopher, but these “appalling sentiments” (and they certainly are appalling) most certainly should be pinned on Dan Winslow and, frankly, most other GOP officials. Scott Brown COULD HAVE fired those staffers immediately. He did not. This garbage WOULD NOT HAPPEN if it were not tolerated and, in all too many cases, encouraged by GOP candidates.
The GOP has a VERY LONG WAY TO GO before I’ll give them a pass on the racism, sexism, misogyny, and bigotry of the past two years and the past campaign.
Quick questions somervilletom, just so I understand the logic of the discussion, do you pin corruption on all Democratic candidates in Massachusetts regardless of their own records and actions? There certainly seem to be far more frequent and recent instances of corruption among Massachusetts Democrats than any overt instances of racism by Massachusetts Republicans of which I am aware. Does my own record of successfully litigating and winning civil rights cases in federal court (adverse to the Democratic monopoly btw) to create the first-ever Latino-majority House seat in Massachusetts or 20 years of advocating (ultimately with success) for the creation of the first-ever congressional district in which persons of color were the majority vote not factor into your pinning a racist label on me?
I appreciate the political skill of your attempt to direct attention somewhere else — I give you an “A” for effort. I won’t, however, take the bait.
I have ruffled more than a few feathers here with my frequent and harsh rejection of the pervasive culture of corruption that breeds on Beacon Hill and City Hall. Having said that, since the Democrats have had overwhelming majorities in both places for years, simple statistics suggests that corrupt politicians are likely to be overwhelmingly Democrat. The surprise, actually, is that there are ANY corrupt Republican legislators — yet, we seem to have just been talking about one.
I don’t doubt that you created a long and laudable record of fighting racism and promoting racial equality in your own career. That makes it all the more tragic that you were and are so unable to speak out when your own candidate conducted such an offensively racist and bigoted campaign. Perhaps if you had submitted YOUR resignation the day the clips of the “war whoops” were shown (and your guy smiled and did nothing), Mr. Brown might have taken a stronger stance. Who knows — he might even have WON!
No, I’m sorry Mr. Winslow, but you had your opportunity to show your courage and you walked away from it. Your party is NOT the party of Lincoln. Your party set itself back ENORMOUSLY in this last campaign.
I don’t doubt that should you choose another party, and should you find a way to explain your passivity in the face of the offensive campaigns you chose to be involved in, then you might well be able to avoid having the “racist” label pinned on you.
As it stands? Nope. It’s there. You had a chance to avoid it, and you chose not to take it.
From the House? I had no formal role in the Brown campaign this time. I served as counsel to the campaign against Martha. I assume you don’t mean I should resign from the House due to others’ conduct. Not a misdirection, btw, just testing whether generalizations only apply to Republicans in your book. I am a member of the Party of Lincoln and I am willing to fight for those principles as needed to improve the Party from within.
or the Party of Trans-Vaginal probes? Of Self-Deportation? Of Out-Of-Control Filibuster Abuse?
Perhaps you should keep your pathetic “principles” off our backs and out of our bedrooms. Lincoln would be disgusted with the slime and filth of your party.
…but you did hold a fundraiser with the co-chair of your campaign in December – what was his name? Scott Brown?
http://www.facebook.com/events/445360328845761/
So Brown runs a racist campaign against Warren, complete with war whoops by his supporters whom he refuses to repudiate, and you’re just fine with him being the co-chair of your own campaign for state senate. You own the racism of your party, Dan – until you reject it, you own it, lock, stock and barrel. The Party of Lincoln is now the Party of Limbaugh.
I respect Mr. Winslow, disagree with him from time to time, but progressives really shouldn’t practice guilt by association tactics and drive civil discourse even further into the muck. There are enough Republicans that continue to make Sen. McCarthy proud in that regard. As far as I know Mr. Winslow is not one of them. I’m a little shocked that merely by affixing an R next to his name he is now responsible for all the bad in his party. I give
him credit for fighting for civil rights in his own capacity, and for the rights of the disabled with recent legislation he passes, which puts him on both counts at odds with the national party. Are all Democrats guilty by association with Robert Byrd, the racist application of the New Deal, internment backed by Democratic majorities and a progressive court? Calling on him to condemn Brown is far, otherwise have some perspective as respect people.
Scott Brown ran a racist campaign against Warren, and Dan Winslow welcomed him as co-chair of his own campaign for state senate. If Dan is truly dedicated to reforming his party from within and standing up for the principles of Lincoln, he should have demanded Brown’s resignation from his own campaign. He didn’t, and as recently as 2 weeks ago, he was using Brown’s name as fundraising bait. That makes him a hypocrite in my book – if he wants to claim the mantle of Lincoln, he should walk the walk.
Far be it for me to give him a promotion to the state senate!
As a member of the House, I respectfully disagree that being a Senator is a “promotion.” I had a choice of seats to seek in the General Court. I’ll take the House any day of the week. The Senate is far too genteel for my tastes. As you can see from these posts, I tend away from the genteel. Democracy is supposed to be noisy.
So pleased that you enjoy the game as much as we do! Always look forward to your posts and other assorted shenanigans….btw, how did that beer-pool fundraiser thing go?
People now in their 20’s and 30’s, women and recent immigrants will decide most future elections in Massachusetts. With that in mind, my Beer (actually water) Pong and Politics event in Boston was a huge success and engaged more than 100 younger voters in my campaign. We raised money, met new people and had fun doing it. It also was the first time (but not the last time) that groupon coupons were used to boost participation at a political fundraiser. I will continue to reach out to these groups of voters and my legislative record establishes my advocacy for their interests. While I enjoy posting here, and mixing it up with my fellow progressives, I only read BMG because of EB3.
Many, many substantive comments have been made since your last comment, and you reply to this one with some nonsense about preferring to be in the house. How about you reply to the comments calling you out for not walking the walk with your “party of Lincoln” bullshit?
That Johnt001 or I have engaged in “Guilt by Association”. On the contrary, Mr Winslow raised the “concept” of there being “Principles” within the remnants of the Party of Lincoln. Speaking only for myself, I was commenting on these so called “Principles” of the Republican Party. of which I have seen if full display for years and for which I have nothing but utter contempt. This so called Party of Lincoln is really the Party of Limbaugh and until such time as the Party changes, I see no reason why the Party cannot be called out for being the racist scum that they are.
Further, I agree with others in this posting that Scott Brown ran a reprehensible campaign and it is not the R next to Mr. Winslow’s name that creates this impression, it is the flaming idiot Scott Brown next to Mr. Winslow that creates this impression.
For the record, I personally, would have preferred that a new Party would have formed with an alternate name, so as to distinguish us from the Dixiecrat past. If I could rewrite history, I would rewrite it such that the Apollo missions to the moon had continued, and onto Mars. Fortunately, unlike the Republican Party, most of the racism has been purged from the Democrat Party and it has changed from within and now demonstrates principles that I can support.
The Democrats DID, in fact, repudiate ALL the things you mention.
When the GOP does the same, then perhaps more tolerance is called for. Until then, no dice. Robert Byrd repudiated and apologized for his own racism many times over his long and illustrious career. I know of NO member of the Republican Party who has done the same.
I have watched virtually EVERY member of the GOP fawn over Rush Limbaugh. Sorry, but “forgiveness” begins with repentance. The first step is for the penitent to acknowledge the wrongs they have committed.
I see no evidence of any such behavior from either the national or the local GOP.
I don’t know what your business arrangement with the Brown Campaign was, but you could have and should have terminated it. You were certainly working on behalf of Mr. Brown, whether or not a formal relationship existed. You could certainly have made a public repudiation of his offensively racist campaign, and you did not.
The comment upthread from johnt001 says it precisely: “You own the racism of your party, Dan – until you reject it, you own it, lock, stock and barrel. The Party of Lincoln is now the Party of Limbaugh.”
Today’s GOP has nothing whatsoever to do with “the party of Lincoln”. Until the GOP repudiates its racism — and we should not forget the equally offensive sexism, homophobia, and xenophobia — following approximately the example set by the Democratic Party in 1968, then you are appropriately branded with that label each time you self-identify with the GOP.
Sorry, that’s just the way it is.
By it’s very nature, and the attendent punishments, people don’t advertise corruption. In that light, I limit my condemnation of Democrats to those who are A) either corrupt or 2) saw something without speaking out…. and admittedly big list but one that is not, in any way, comparable to PUBLIC DISPLAYS which, in distinct contrast to corruption, are for everyone to see and, presumably, comment on.
You will have noted, I hope, that greater part of the above images occurred outdoors amongst the brightest of sunlight. Most corruption, I’ve been told, withers away under sunlight.
And, as noted, corruption once discovered is (mostly) treated with a strong dose of law and order. This is remarkably not the case with overt racism and outright misogyny… When that occurs we’re told to hush up and move on to ‘substantive discussion.’ Well, we’re calling BS on that as well as refusing to shut up about it. And we get to call you on corruption of the discussion if you’re going to continue to try to hush us up.
Or, put another way, good people sometimes miss corruption right under their nose because they refuse to believe the worst in others…. But sometimes racism happens because other people refuse to believe the best in anyone.
It does if your patronage derives from a patronizing arrogance.
…the woulda shoulda coulda needs to stop. We all lament how reasonableness and civility seem to have left either the political process generally or the GOP in particular depending on the context. Here we have someone who is willing to come engage with us about actual ideas, the kind of Republican that we desperately need more of, and for his efforts he gets torn up one side and down the other because he didn’t handle a situation exactly as you would have, or because (shock!) he publicly supported the nominee of his own party for a major office. File under making the perfect the enemy of the good. Every campaign has idiot supporters and sometimes even idiot staffers. If I were supporting a candidate, especially a Dem nominee, I would not want the sins of other supporters of that candidate laid at my feet either.
It’s quite another for the candidate to not fire the staffers or repudiate the supporters after they engage in racist taunts of his opponent’s supporters on the streets of Boston.
Dan Winslow came here and claimed the mantle of the party of Lincoln, pointing to his own legislative history, but he had that candidate, Scott Brown, heavily involved in his own campaign as co-chair. Scott Brown ran a racist campaign, because that’s trick #1 in the GOP playbook ever since Nixon. If Dan wants to claim he’s part of the party of Lincoln, he needs to walk the walk and repudiate any candidate running a racist campaign, I don’t care who it is. If he did that, he’d certainly get more respect from me when he wants to “engage us with actual ideas”, and I’d be more willing to hear him out as he recalls Lincoln’s legacy.
Now, I really do enjoy the fact that Dan is willing to engage us, but I want full engagement, I want him to reply to the substantive posts left by me and many others up thread. Sorry you didn’t like my reply above, but if he’s really here to engage us and try to earn our respect, he should show the courage of his supposed convictions and handle these situations accordingly. Jon Stewart put it best: if you don’t stick to your values when the going gets tough, they’re not values, they’re hobbies!
The fact that he’s using Brown’s name to fundraise just in the last two weeks speaks volumes about his actual values. He doesn’t care that Brown ran a racist campaign – Brown has star power, and that’s what Dan needs. Actions speak louder than words, and if he cared about race relations at all, he’d show it with his actions – on the subject of Scott Brown’s racist campaign, all I’m seeing is lip service.
If I wanted to see trolls I’d have bought a ticket to see the Hobbit, the paucity of discourse on this thread and the racist images are truly a new low on BMG. If I wanted a hack job I’d have read an eb3 post, expected better from some of you.
…the first reference to Lincoln on this thread was from Mr. Winslow saying he wanted to RE-establish the GOP brand as the party of Lincoln, which to me constitutes an acknowledgement that it hasn’t been the party of Lincoln recently and he wants to work on that. I just find it extremely distasteful that someone comes in and says in effect let’s bring some civility back to politics and all some people can do is bring up a whole list of incivilities committed by people with whom he agrees on policy. The 2012 campaign is over and we won – time to look forward.
He said he wanted to rehabilitate the Republican BRAND, not surprising given the state of the Massachusetts GOP. He said nothing at all about civility.
Given the behavior of the Republican Party over the last 20 years or more, I’d scoff at a call from a Republican elected official for civility anyway. Take the plank from your own eye, by which I mean not only racist t-shirts in Alabama but the lovely stack of slime I got in the mail from his Mass. GOP in 2012. In this context Obama’s calls for bipartisan civility were the thing I liked LEAST about him in 2008.
If Rep. Winslow really wants to reestablish the Party of Lincoln, the GOP ceasing its race-baiting would only be step one. He’d also have change most of the rest of the platform. Lincoln was a Whig, the party of strong federal government, public investment in education, infrastructure and economic development. To restore the Party of Lincoln, he’d have to be a Democrat.
As for looking forward, I am looking forward. Tell me what we’ve won. The national branch of Rep. Winslow’s party has just announced their intent to hold the debt ceiling hostage for S.S./Medicare/Medicaid cuts. I don’t see much changed.
…is the US Senate election in MA, which I was specifically refering to since everyone wants to blame Winslow for every sin of Brown’s. Basically I’m saying Brown’s campaign is now in the history books so rehashing and finger-pointing isn’t helpful. I did not mean that he explicitly called for civility in this post, but that his overall attitude on BMG has been one of come let us reason together.
Barack Obama and our party has been trying to “reason” with the GOP for entirely too long already — to the great detriment of America and Massachusetts.
When “come let us reason together” comes on the heels of a long and offensive campaign, comes in the midst of strong indications that Mr. Winslow’s party is redoubling its negativity, and comes with essentially NO evidence from Mr. Winslow that he will actually DO anything to change the appalling nature of his party, then I conclude that his desire to remake the GOP brand is just another cosmetic marketing effort.
The problem with the GOP is NOT their marketing or “message”. The problem is WHAT THE PARTY IS TODAY. Until that changes, I’ve done enough “reasoning” with them.
Rep. Winslow has taken the time to be here and reason with us and is clearly not part of the national party and may be trying to reclaim
it for the center. Just because the national party he belongs to is unreasonable does not give us as reality based progressives an excuse to unreasonable. Progressives should strive to fight fear with reality, scapegoating with evidence, and bigotry with compassion.
The reality of the GOP is to call out voices fighting fear as “sluts aka Sandra Fluke” so when I hear people claim that the GOP is the “Party of Lincoln” or that there are “Republican Principles”, I am not surprised that we all collectively find the claim to be absurd. As such, the comments are supported with evidence and links, and I do not see how to demonstrate compassion for the flaming idiot Scott Brown and his racist campaign. Once more, reality and evidence as requested.
…you’ve painted Winslow into a position he can’t win. He cannot snap his fingers and change his party over night, and should not be held personally responsible for everything his party does. As you’ve pointed out you have been critical of Dems when their actions do not represent the best of us so I assume you’d be upset if someone blamed you for Democratic corruption just because you happen to also be a Democrat. I know I would be. Here is a list of Mr. Winslow’s posts on BMG. They are consistently thoughtful and substantive, not that we’ll always agree and I’ve been known to push back myself, but at least here on BMG that is his record of engagement, which should be encouraged.
I don’t see anyone painting Rep. Winslow into a corner. What I have read here is people objecting to the use of “Republican Principles” and the “Party of Lincoln” as though these are somehow things to aspire to or “Manna from Heaven”. It seems to me, that since you cannot escape the fact that Scott Brown ran a racist campaign, any comment about the GOP in general is somehow a personal attach against Rep. Winslow, which is not the case.