The Memo continues:
Trainings: This is one area where we have had a pretty strong presence. Last week alone, I was in eastern, central and western mass training local committees on voter vault and the tactics that are used to build the vault. Dick Hersum with Association of Massachusetts Republican Town and City Committees wants to have a conference for all of the City, Town, and Ward chairs in Massachusetts this winter. I think this will be a great opportunity for us to discuss our Action Packet, Two-Year Plan, and Guide To Simple Blogging as well as voter vault.
Online Expansion: The Boston Globe recently noticed our online improvements and we still have a few things to tweak. First, our online donation effort needs a lot of attention. Our “Buck Page” is meant to only be one option to donate, not the only option. We will also develop our video presence on our homepage and also on our side pages like the candidate recruitment page where activists can hear directly from you or myself in a personal way. Our candidates page needs to be updated and we need to raise awareness about our private 24/7 training center, MassRootsAction. We will send out another mass email shortly plugging MassRootsAction where our activists, committee members, and candidates can obtain relevant materials, statistics, documents and training resources.
but if the state Democratic party is doing this level of activist outreach, training, and support, then they need a new publicist because I haven’t heard a peep about it.
I’m just sharing, and providing something to discuss. I think competition is good, incidentally.
This kind of stuff goes on all of the time.
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The Democratic State Committee meeting the other night featured several reports of the latest round of activity, including updating the web site, meetings for local chairs, grassroots fundraising, and so on.
This basic stuff was not done under the 12 years of Republican Governors. It just wasn’t. It is why we as Republican’s in Massachusetts are where we are. We were 2,290 votes shy of picking up seats in the legislature in 2006. 2,290 votes.
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While your side was busy identifying voters and getting them to the polls. Too many of our candidates thought standing at the town rotary holding a sign would win them votes.
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Rob Willington, love him or hate him (as many on your site do) is a campaign professional with a Masters Degree in Campaign Management from Suffolk University. He understands campaigning and is imparting his knowledge to the field. Part of his success is the small army of new municipal elected officials we have in our party. He spent time with them and helped their campaigns. This includes a 22 year old kid from Chicopee who won his first school committee race.
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In Marlboro city government is close to being controlled by Republicans. We are winning step by step and its because of the tireless work that the three man operation at the Mass Republican party is doing. If with the Millions of dollars they pissed through over the past twelve years, the state party would have done even a sliver of what Rob is doing with virtually no money, my party would be in a hell of a lot different shape.
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I’m not so sure about that. I’d wager the lack of Republican success in MA has a lot more to do with the ideological positions of the national Republican Party.
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Can the Republicans make marginal steps towards picking up some seats in the state legislature, and perhaps even reduce the Democratic edge to 75%? Maybe. But as long as the national Republican party is tainted with the legacies of Newt and Bush, then MA will remain a deep blue state, regardless of money, Marlboro, and master’s degrees in campaign management.
is redevelop the New England Republican image of a fiscally conservative social moderate. That’s how they won 16 years of governorships in Massachusetts and that’s the impression they’ll need to restore before they can return from the wilderness. Romney’s rebranding of himself in the National GOP mold did as much damage as Newt or Bush.
That may be what they need to do to win votes, but it’s not clear at all that even fiscal conservatism is such a wonderful thing.
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I’m all for transparency, frugality, and wisdom in where we choose to spend money. The problem is that fiscal conservatives show the opposite of transparency, frugality, and wisdom in where they choose not to spend money. Do that long enough and you have out of control contractors fixing falling bridges slowly and badly.
not so much with “fiscal conservatism” per se, but with the idea, introduced only in the past 10-15 years, that “fiscal conservatism” equals “press for tax cuts during the good times, the bad times…all the time!!!”. Believe it or not, sometimes tax cuts are fiscally irresponsible.
I agree with everything you say. I just don’t see self-described fiscal conservatives as ever joining you and me in agreeing to “Believe it or not, sometimes tax cuts are fiscally irresponsible.” Or when they do, that’s when one should play the lottery.
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The reason is that fiscal conservatives are often convinced that there is a huge amount of waste that the discipline of tight budgeting will squeeze out of government.
Seems that this company gets 22 million a year from the Commonwealth to care for the mentally handicapped on the south shore. Seems everyone on the company payroll that gets a nice fat check is family. The corporate officers get nice fat raises and the services to their clientele are dwindling. Gosh—-can you imagine that? It must be a vast right wing conspiracy deftly manipulated by those stingy and cold hearted republicans.
Maybe I should now write the comment to which MRCD is responding. Let me try.
Can I win a valuable prize?
for the lightening round!
Hoya – the funny thing is the RNC thinks we aren’t conservative ENOUGH.
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Will Mass. remain blue? Maybe. But it’s already a lot more maroon than the Progressive movement wants to admit, especially in fiscal matters. The Vivid Blue governor looks like a dunce when in a three week period he testifies in favor of a One Billion bio-tech initiative AND announces a One Billion shortfall in tax receipts spelling less aids to cities and towns. It allows the public to peer into the working of the state treasury and grasp an important truth – that the state budget is actually comprised of a lot of IOU’s in an old cigar box, to be pulled out when needed.
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Also – a fact check on EaBo – Voter Vault was preceeded in 2004 with a less flashy but equally serviceable version called Campaign Portal. Some…uh..rogue operatives with access gave county and municipal access to data. Where were they? Well, look at the RMG map, and it gives you a clue.
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If Democrats controlling 85% of the legislature, all statewide positions, all 10 Congressional seats, and both Senate positions isn’t deep, deep, blue — well, then I don’t know what is. You can point to polls examining voters’ stated issues positions in polls as evidence of a “maroon” state, but in the one poll that counts — elections — Democrats keep trouncing Republicans in this state, and even more so now than in the past.
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The problem Republicans have here is not with strategy or money, it’s something out of their control — the national Republicans. If the RNC believes that the MA GOP is not conservative enough, then they are simply foolish, that’s all.
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It’s kind of like a Governor (Dem or Republican) getting credit or blame for the economy in their state. Sure, they have some control over it, but really what matters more is whether the national economy as a whole is booming or in a recession. It’s a lot of luck. And with the national Republicans getting more stridently ideologically conservative over the past couple decades, the MA GOP hasn’t had much luck.
Would though that they were better Democrats — or even just better stewards of our common wealth.
Who will be to blame?
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Was talking to my rep last night. he states the reason that the rainy day fund and more importantly the aid to local cities and towns is not there is that the legislature has been pilfering it for years now and hid their machinations with creative accounting and aided and abetted by the democratic treasurer.
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The chickens will come home to roost. Likely sooner rather than later.
Only 3 have Web sites and not one of those sites mention that they’re Republicans. I’ve mentioned it before, but it bears repeating — Greer Tan Swiston even removed the pictures of Mitt and Kerry from her site and replaced them with one of the Duke.
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Not exactly a resounding endorsement of Mr. Willington’s reshaping of the party.
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http://redmassgroup….
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Rob Willington gave a progress report. From the email from Peter:
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The only Baghdad Bob here is our friend Bob from BMG putting a Spin that the MA GOP did not put on this report.
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Making progress and saying everything is great are two different things.
And the local Republicans have picked up a key endorsement from someone who knows what it takes to make an organization grow: Sean O’Malley.
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Rob Willington, love him or hate him (as many on your site do) is a campaign professional with a Masters Degree in Campaign Management from Suffolk University.
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…Suffolk University actually has a graduate degree in campaign management? What will universities think of next to separate fools from their money?
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What I found interesting was that, in 2004, Mitt Romney spent millions of dollars trying to elect more Republicans to the state legislature and ended up with a net gain of minus three (or, according to some reports, minus five). I wonder why.
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Actually, I have a pretty good idea why. In my early years, I voted primarily Republican. But the Republican party has turned into the party of hatred, division and racism. EaBo refered to a kid in Chicopee who won a school committee race. Whoop-ti-do. In the 2006 legislative race, there was a similarly-aged kid who was running for the state legislature from Lowell as a Republican. He supported same-sex marriage. I wonder just how much support he got from the Republican state party. I’d almost be willing to guess, not much.
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Torkildson and others of his ilk have recently said that they want to tone the social rhetoric down. I’d mention the aphorism of the lipstick and the pig, but you know what that refers to.
And some of them are not George Carlin’s seven dirty words.
…damn birds
Please. The democratic party has made it policy to keep blacks and hispanics locked in economic and educational slavery by their immoral and unethical handout and language barrier policies. Take a good long look in the mirror.
…you were not a sentient being when Nixon instigated his Southern Strategy to entice the Dixiecrats to the Republican party.
but I’m unable to find the link to Rob Wilington’s memo. I’d like to read it.
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BTW, the MA GOP home page has a ‘GOPnews’ tab which gets you to the RNC site. It’s an alternate universe. Good luck to the MA GOP trying to overcome that anchor.
I myself am curious who leaked it to Bob. It WASN’T me.
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See, we don’t always NOTIFY youse guys when we have good news…
signed up to get “Email updates” on the MassGOP Home Page. I will publish the memo in full on RMG later today.
my inability to comprehend written words.
But to that memo, and Bob’s point:
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That left me scratching my head. Ogo lost, but it somehow improved GOP spirits? Jeesh. You guys are going to be absolutely thrilled come the ’08 elections.
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That said, I think that there will always be an opportunity for the MA GOP, but you/they have to break ranks with the Big Daddy RNC. The history of divided Govt in this country and state is much longer than the past 20 years of hand to hand combat. Maybe ’08 will be the rock bottom, but let’s face it, the local GOP folks that I know would be tarred & feathered as ‘liberals’ by the GOP in a place like Kansas or Texas. Romney hasn’t done you guys any favors either IMHO, and his candidacy is a lose/lose for him and MA Republicans.
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I was reading something the other day about Bill Weld and the way that he was kicked down the stairs by Jesse Helms, and it just reminded of the recent GOP scorched earth policies. Remember Karl and his permanent majority?
…in light of THIS recent comment by Pablo, which pretty much sums up Mass. Dem. strategery:
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Really? (0.00 / 0)
Then the Democrats’ branding effort hasn’t worked with you.
Think:
Republican=Bush
Bush=Republican
Republican=Bush
Bush=Republican
Republican=Bush
Bush=Republican
Republican=Bush
Bush=Republican
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Never mind our corruption! Never mind how we ignore you until we want money or a vote – we’re DEMOCRATS, dammit!
I haven’t been keeping up with BMG lately, so I had to look up that thread you referenced, and maybe I’m misreading pablo, but I think he/she was making a joke (without the helpful emoticons of course)! But I laughed anyway, especially at the replies.
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Not sure why you think I’m being disingenuous, and I’m not familiar with pablo’s posts, but I like the humah!
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Anywho, good luck to the MA GOP, keep up the good fight, tell Ogo & Mitt I said hello, you guys are well on your way. Put some champagne on the list, and 1 year from now we can all toast the MA GOP together!
perception that they would be more fiscally responsible than Democratic opponents. There was on genuinely fiscally responsible Republican governor – Jane Swift. She was run out of town by her own party and the press.