The consensus on the blue side of the aisle seems to be that they should jettison their social conservatism and become more Weld-like, i.e., fiscally conservative and at least socially tolerant. On the red side of the aisle, some embrace that as a distasteful necessity. Many do not. (Think of Palin’s continued popularity.) A few think the Mass. GOP should consider cutting ties from the national party. Presumably, those who think there’s no ideological problem will focus, like Ms. Nassour, on “energy” — and attain failure more strenuously.
Republicans will not realign any time soon. Sure they lost in 2006 and 2008. I bet they’ll have to lose larger and bigger before they give up their dream of reliving 1980. The stress hasn’t been large enough for them to abandon Reaganism.
And as long as there is a Darwinian readiness to let anyone poor sink, and to play “lock ’em up” rather than face the actual costs of education, housing, and social repair.
Why does “family values” mean hate? Just because we believe the family unit is the most important sociologigal group in existence? Or is it that we don’t agree with your all-inclusive rhetoric? If democrats are going to mention Darwinism, you need to place the “Social” prefix with it. Because, like it or not, you people are practicing Social Darwinists. Why were there no persons of wheelchair disability on your convention floor last June? Why did Kerry see the need to parade out his friend Max Cleland? as a prop for election stops. What the heck is Kerry doing in Poland? Yeah, we’re going to see a lot of our problems solved with that vacation.
Turner, Wilkinson et al. are not locked up.
Do you know that the price of a human life is four years in jail?
Regarding Edgar Bowser: you kill a cop in the line of duty, you life SHOULD be over!
Let’s reinstitute the death penalty and save some money.
But yes, being against marriage equality and homophobic is, in my view, a position of hate, not pro family at all.
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p>Similarly, “lock em up” and the school to prison pipeline is also a fear and hate fueled attitude. So we differ and you really should go to AmberPaw’s page and do some reading before you pontificate!
Where do I sign up? I had to get divorced to stay alive. Oh. I get it. Being “disabled” doesn’t fit in with your (plural) social Darwinistic agenda. Ignore us, we’ll die soon enough. Um, I’m not dying. I won’t give you prejudiced/discriminatory folks the pleasure.
Take a good long look in the mirror folks.
I have and I can tell you, so have all of those VoteOnMarriage Bigots that the GOP allows to call themselves “Republican Activists.” You know, I am gay, I am married, I have been together with my partner for over 20 years. I have a family, real and extended and I believe like you do that the family is important.
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p>However, as long as the GOP leadership has someone like Rob Willington on the State Committee as Political Director or whatever he has been elevated to, there is a problem. This ex Chair of VoteOnMarriage referred to gays as “evil” in a signed email to VOM and “GOP” volunteers. Get rid of people like that and maybe we will once again have unity in the party.
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p>I know there are alot of people unhappy with the Patrick administration, especially those who voted Democratic when they probably would have voted Republican (historicaly and out of principle) but Kerry Healey gave them no choice. But now I see a potential of a run for the Corner Office by maybe a Senator Scott Brown? Or at least a Brown attempt for Lt. Governor. And I hope, I just hope that we can see the “real” candidate Brown or another and not influences of idiots in GOP leadership that will be pushing social issues. Enough is enough!
“want” sometimes doesn’t produce an end.
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p>And I am still waiting for my property taxes to decrease.
Proud to be unenrolled. I don’t totally agree with the Republican agenda. I don’t totally agree with the democratic agenda. This allows me to vote for the best CANDIDATE, not to follow along like the blind sheep do.
does not force sheeple voting. sheeple mentality does.
That way I can vote for the best candidate.
The problem on the ground is a lack of organized infrastructure. They need to rebuild from the town committees up, and that’s going to take time and patience. Too much focus on the corner office for 16 years has left the foundation seriously starved.
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p>That being said, the national brand of Republicanism doesn’t seem to play well in Massachusetts, so there does need to be a serious growth of ideas, and I don’t know if the state party has the wherewithal to make that happen.
Thank you.
We have endured an onslaught for 8 years now. The war has brought a tremendous amount of pressure and criticism to the GOP as well as legitimate criticism of our squandering of power while controlling the POTUS, the House and the Senate.
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p>Yet, even with all that baggage, even with the a less-than-optimal candidate and even with running against the first black presidential candidate who also happens to be charming, likable and an untouchable orator things weren’t that bad. I know we got our clock cleaned in numbers of seats in Congress and the White House (53% – 46%) but I have hope.
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p>Even with all the above inertia I still believe if the economy had not collapsed on September 15th, then John McCain would be President elect now. And a part of me is almost glad he lost considering the situation now and going forward.
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p>Again I’ll repeat myself by saying I want Obama to succeed and turn the economy around as all Americans should. But he will go down in history as increasing the National Debt more than any President in history. As a matter of fact I’m sure there will be plenty of records broken while he is in office… for the worse.
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p>Republicans need to rally the base on the traditions of the party. Bill Weld Republicans… I’d rather call us Pragmatic Republicans. As a whole we are much smarter than Democrats, make more money, are healthier and have made the country what it is (which we are proud of “everyday”). We just need to focus our super powers on finding some good candidates to run for office. It is a lot easier to criticize people for what they have done and promise what you will do if you replace them. The democrats will not have the war to harp on any longer. All the blame for the war, the economy, immigration, healthcare… will fall squarely on the democratically controlled Oval office, Senate and House. Alternative energy’s success will be directly linked to Democrats. Big oil profits are no longer the stain to Republicans. Unbalanced budgets will have a big D DNA all over them. Relations with the ROW( Rest of World), you guessed it Democratics are responsible. Political scandals such as we have seen lately will continue to involve Democrats (Rangel, Jefferson, Blagojevich, Spitzer, Tim Mahoney, Wilkerson, Turner, DiMasi…) which is not surprising since Democrats are in power and power is what corrupts. Don’t ever forget the country is RED and only leaned left when it lost it’s balance temporarily due to overwhelming financial concerns.
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p>We are reorganizing and it will not take much to tip the scales in the opposite direction of how they have tipped in the last 2 years. Come to the CHRISTMAS PARTY in Shrewsbury on Dec 17th and help our party begin the revival.
After 2000 and 2004, the Democratic Party was dead. Dead, eulogized, buried, cremated, mourned, and forgotten.
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p>Then, suddenly, Bush et al. developed the anti-Midas touch, and fucked everything up. And suddenly the Democrats in 2006 had new life! An new energy! New ideas! The country is shifting leftward, and professing their rejection of Republicans and all their empty promises.
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p>Sure as your mother loves you, the Democrats will, at some point, fuck things up. We may hope that this is some ways in the future, and we fervently hope for our own sake that they un-fuck things that are already all fucked up for awhile before they fuck things up anew and on their own account. But: death, taxes, and the party in power will eventually fuck things up. Oh, and BC will fuck up the last big game before the BCS. Alas.
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p>Once the inevitable happens, the resurgent Republicans will discover new ideas! A new energy! And on we will go.
(Well-written, by the way, CMD.)
Had I wrote this I we would be reading words like “rant” …
Had I wrote written this[,] I we would be reading words like “rant”[.]
I think it all stems from my willingness to be convinced that it is time for the US Armed forces to begone from Mesopotamia.
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p>And, in any event, it was a rant. Some rants are true.
You should get me going on Bush, Romney, or Republicans. Then you’ll get a rant.
You know yourself that you used to overuse them and that you crossed some lines of etiquette.
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p>”Bad words” are a very useful part of the language. I’d never ban them. Thyme is also very useful. One must never serves it as a main course.
leads to material misrepresentation.
This diary was specifically about the Massachusetts GOP. The national party has had a couple of bad cycles too, but here they are 0/6 for Constitutional offices, 0/8 in the Governor’s Council, 5/40 in the State Senate and 16/160 in the State House.
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p>I’d also like you to back up your assertions that Republicans are smarter, healthier, and prouder than Democrats. You’re probably right in general about making more money, but as they say, if you want to live like a Republican you better vote Democratic.
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p>Finally, scandals only become a party problem IF the party tolerates it. In other words, don’t you dare smear us with Blagojevich. I don’t hear any Democrats defending him and the Senate Democrats are already saying they don’t even want to seat his appointment.
I guess we in Massachusetts are not yet so fucked up that we might vote for a party that is so fucked up.
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p>Raising too many taxes in the teeth of an unusually tough recession seems like a good way to infuse that thing that calls it self the Mass GOP with new energy and new ideas, etc., though.
WE have plenty of criminals in the democratic party.
Hey Bob Spellane: Can I have a mortgage free mortgage too? How’s your little girlfriend?
If having family values is wrong, call me wrong!
“As a whole [pragmatic Republicans] are much smarter than Democrats, make more money, are healthier and have made the country what it is (which we are proud of “everyday”).”
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p>I can’t tell just how tongue-in-cheek that is supposed to be, but if you’re serious I take a bit of exception with the notion that there’s an elusive breed of Republican magically endowed with heightened intelligence, physical well-being, and fiscal success.
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p>You are, however, correct that the Obama administration and Democrats as a whole will bear the responsibility for things from here on out. Of course, your predictions are a bit dire and although you hope for our country’s success you don’t seem too upset at the possibility of having something to blame Democrats for. So I ask: will you be equally ready to commend Obama and the Democrats for any successes they manage during the next few years?
As for Obama, “YES WE CAN”, I mean yes I will commend him for fixing things if he fixes them (and Deval whom I dislike). As I have said I’m an American first and a Republican second (or third…). I want the economy to get better, I want immigration fixed, I want healthcare to be reformed (not free), I want the war to end successfully… And if Obama makes those things happen then he deserves 100% of the credit… and if things go wrong he deserves 100% of the fault!
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p>My post was trying to bring attention to so many things Obama campaigned on against Bush and Republicans that suddenly are not big deals. The National debt was an embarrassment for Bush and now Obama will blow away every record for adding to the National Debt. Budget deficits were a tire around the Republican’s necks but now we will break the records for unbalanced budgets.
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p>BTW, have there been any studies to find out…
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p>Are Republicans richer? Smarter? Healthier? It would make sense since we may be better educated and eat healthier.
That’s obviously not the case.
One theme that permeates Republican ideology is that failure is due to a character flaw. “The system” is never to blame, people are either successful or lazy due to their own personal fortitude.
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p>Therefore since the Republican Party is not very successful in Massachusetts, they must tend to be lazier than Democrats.
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p>Maybe we should get the word out to employers — “hire a Republican and you’re more likely to hire someone who is lazy”.
The GOP gubernatorial candidate, Dino Rossi, and the incumbent AG, Steve McKenna, accepted over-limit donations from the WA Association of Realtors association, and coordinated fundraising with the association. Rossi has made similar transgressions in the past with the Building Industry Association of WA.
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p>Rossi, a perpetual candidate, getting involved in campaign corruption is one thing. But the attorney general is quite another.
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p>Recall also that the WA GOP Chair Esser called the primary for McCain before enough ballots had been counted.
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p>Corruption.