Many massachusetts republicans are wondering whether Charlie Baker is a RINO (Republican In Name Only). This is after it came to light that Baker over the last several years had been a major donor to Democatic Office Holders like Senate President Terry Murray and others including former Speaker of the House Tom “Felon” Fineran.
Now over the last few days, it was revealed in the Boston Globe, that Baker sent emisaries to enlist rival and former Democrat Tim Cahill to be his Lt. Governor. Cahill rejected Baker. Now it's come to light that Baker could be in trouble in the Republican Primary. A new poll out from Suffolk University shows Baker trailing Christy Mihos for GOP nomination. Is Charlie Baker sinking like the titanic? Looks like good news for Deval. Two articles question Baker's troubles. One article on redmassgroup.com in which Massachusetts Republicans are going at the own throats because of Baker's decision to go after the former Democrat as his running mate and another by the Boston Globe:
http://www.redmassgroup.com/diary/5805/bombshell-baker-camps-asks-cahill-to-be-no-2
Charlie Baker’s donations to democrats:
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p>State Senate President Therese Murray (D-Plymouth): $750 (2002,2006)
State Rep. Harriett L. Stanley (D-Waltham): $125 (2002)
State Treasurer Candidate James W. Segel (D-Needham): $300 (2002)
Fmr. State House Speaker Thomas Finneran: $2,000 (2002,2004)
State Rep. Peter Koutoujian (D-Waltham): $400 (2004)
State Rep. Ronald Mariano (D-Quincy): $350 (2004)
Fmr. Attorney General Tom Reilly (D-Watertown): $250 (2004)
State Rep. John H. Rogers (D-Norwood): $250 (2004)
Fmr. State Senate President Robert E. Traviglini (D-East Boston): $400 (2006)
First, in the universe Baker inhabits, these are courtesy donations.
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p>Second, he was the CEO of a company that is highly regulated by the state. He’d have been a fool not to make donations to politicians in leadership. He is no fool.
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p>I don’t think it means anything.
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p>Charlie does not need the hard right true believers. He needs a lot of un-enrolled voters and some moderate Democrats to win.
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Baker will beat Mihos. I’d bet my brand new BMG t-shirt on it!
unless they support an issue which BMGers support… like you.
Really? We like well sourced polls with good methodology, but that doesn’t mean we don’t believe in them.
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p>BTW, When did you become a BMGer, let alone a spokesman?
…in the sense of being a regular participant. If he really didn’t like it here he wouldn’t have to keep coming back.
… posts like this one:
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p>99% of the time he makes a makes a point of not being one of us. Unless it serves to advance one of his rantsposts.
You regularly attack “BMGers” so was surprised to see you refer to yourself as one.
Hope nobody throws tomatoes at me!
By Baker’s move, since likely the only way he can lose (other than the national economy going gangbusters before next November) is by having Cahill in the race. Of course, Cahill believes he can win, and despite the skepticism of a number of BMG’ers I think he’ll stick around and actually have a legitimate shot to pull it off.
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p>As far as the Republican primary, I’d initially be quite surprised if Baker lost, but after all it is hard to underestimate the incompetence of the Massachusetts GOP. So you never know.
The partisanship of Democrats can make some people blind. If Charlie Baker were a Democrat, I believe the masses of Democrats in MA would be thrilled. He’s intelligent, impressive, successful and beams leadership. If he was a Democrat even I would vote for him. He also thinks beyond he end of the day and would be having some serious chats with our State financial people who have missed predicting the last 5 quarters of tax revenue. Don’t be shocked when Deval misses the next quarter either. How about we start thinking realistically and plan for the bumpy road ahead instead of whacking people every quarter.
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p>Stop deriding Charlie Baker just because he has a R after his name!
Sabutai and I have been saying Deval’s toast for a few months now, and I would refer you to my post titled ‘Why Charlie Baker is our Next Governor” to get my two cents on the matter. Polls do matter and Deval was at 36% in his last poll. Baker is an unknown quantity and his numbers can only go up, Cahill’s will go up until closing time and then go down-mostly to Baker. Deval’s numbers will likely remain static. His supporters are committed (and some of them should be committed in another sense) and they aren’t going to change their mind. I see him hovering between 35-40% now until election day. The hardcore progressives who think Deval is too centrist for them will likely come back to his tent but the independents and moderate Dems he won in 06 will be more skeptical and are Baker and Cahills to grab-until Cahill is viewed as a thrown vote and those voters migrate over to Baker.
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p>What worries me JohnD is not that Baker is a conservative, I know he is a solid centrist, what worries me is how similar he and Deval are. Both are political neophytes, both don’t know how to work with legislators, both are from really academic backgrounds and might find their policy visions limited by political realities, neither would work well with the leg, and both will be limited to one term.
The closest thing I said is that there’s a great opportunity for a Democrat to beat Deval in a primary. I was thinking Martha Coakley, possibly Tom Menino as the best positioned to take advantage of it. If Cahill stays in the race, and can keep support at 20% or more, Deval wins with some 40% of the vote. If either Baker or Cahill disappear, he’s going to have problems.
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p>I think it’s a bit far out from Election Day to say that Deval’s “screwed”…but he should be sweating hard at least…
The only question is will Cahill suck out any Democrat votes from Deval? The assumption seems to be Cahill votes come from Charie Baker’s hide.
I think some Democrats would be willing to give Tim Cahill a fair listen, but he would still need to earn their support. And as I said elsewhere, recent elections show that if a third-party candidate can’t consistently hold on to 15% of the electorate in polling, s/he tends to bleed support badly in the last month of the campaign a la Chris Daggett.
Deval and Baker are more similar then different and the similarities are what give me pause. I want someone who can handle the politics.
Certainly, Jconway certainly can doubt the potential success of a would-be Gov. Baker in realizing his policy visions in Mass. because of the Democratic political realities in the legislature.
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p>Nevertheless, characterizing Charlie Baker as a “political neophyte” and comparing his alleged lack of political experience with Deval Patrick when he was elected governor ignores the very significant state government experience of Baker while he served in the Weld administration. As Secretary of Health and Human Services and later as Secretary of Administration of Finance under Gov. Weld, Baker negotiated with the legislature on many different issues including implementing welfare reform, Medicaid, taxes and fees, and the overall state budget.
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p>Even his subsequent private sector experience working as CEO of Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates required him to negotiate with state government leaders, including the Attorney General, as he managed the turnaround that saved the insurance company from going under. Governor Patrick, on the other hand, had limited state government interactions as a corporate lawyer nor had he served in any appointed capacity in state government prior to his ascension to the Corner Office.
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p>Finally, I have doubts about whether the experience in state government prerequisites you are proposing actually meet the test of political reality here in Massachusetts. For example, Governor Weld, who was a federal prosecutor and private attorney with no state government experience prior to his election in 1990, accomplished many policy and fiscal achievements during his tenure. Moreover, Governor Dukakis, when he was first elected in 1974, was better known for being a mostly unsucessful “legislative refomer” and hosting a public television affairs program “The Advocates,” than any legislative accomplishments he achieved four previous terms as a state representative. The trick here involves being a “quick study” in learning how to influence and move state government, including the legislature, which Weld and Dukakis were (although Dukakis suffered a re-election defeat in ’78), and capitalizing on your political mandate shortly after being elected.
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p>Deval’s problem is that he is an innately cautious, deliberate, and supremely nice man who has shown he is averse to confronting political allies and opponents. He’s much more apt to negotiate away the policy and management differences he has with key legislative stakeholders and compromise with executive agency administrators who seek to block the reform ideas and vision from coming to fruition. That’s a quality fraught with adverse consequences for the Governor and the citizens of the Commonwealth who have lived for many years under the yoke of a state government bureaucracy and legislature so resistant to reform and new policy ideas. It is, however, a quality well-suited to the world where he came from, corporate law, and where he will likely return to in 2010, unless the economy in the state undergoes a miraculous recovery.
Yeah but Eddie, Charlie was absent for 25% of his meetings when he was elected to his most recent post as Selectman for Swampscott. Charlie was even absent and skipped an entire Town Meeting which all local legislative business for Swampscott’s fiscal year is passed. Charlie just skipped it. Charlie Baker served three years from 2004-2007 and the reason why he didn’t seek re-election was because his community wanted to vote him out because of his continual absences from his Selectman duties.
He’s been around this state for a long, long time — and an announced candidate for months now. It speaks volumes that Cahill is now polling ahead of him.
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p>I thought you were wrong in your diary then, and I think you’re wrong now. Patrick’s going to win this seat by around 10%, but fail to get a majority of the vote (by a fairly good margin). Barring anything unforeseen, I have a tough time believing either Cahill or Baker/Mihos will crack the 25% mark so long as they both stay in the race, and I really don’t see the undecideds breaking one way or the other, because who would you break for in that situation when both anti-Deval votes are stuck at 20-25%? All the anti-Deval votes are going to be divided up, which is why Deval will get his second term in a very, very ugly “landslide” election, in which he does not get close to a majority of the votes.
even a response to mine? I don’t see how I “derided Baker” in my post. I derided the Massachusetts GOP, but I would hope even thinking Massachusetts conservatives would agree with the incompetence of the state organization.
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p>Anyway, you say:
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p>He certainly has time, but this hasn’t been proven yet. He is “successful and beams leadership”? What has he done in politics? Like the other commenters here, this is the same (serious) problem that Deval had.
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p>And before you talk about Baker’s “business experience,” let me stop you. Anyone, Democrat or Republican, who claims that government can be “run like a business” or that business experience is analogous to political experience simply does not know what they are talking about. Political leadership is a whole different beast with little in common with business leadership.
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p>But, to be fair to JohnD, maybe he doesn’t believe this either. So I’d invite him to clarify how Baker has been “successful and beams leadership” that is at all relevant to this gubernatorial race.
Baker/Cahill looks good on paper but it won’t work. Cahill’s ego is too big and he’d make a bad #2 even if he went for it, also it would be presumptuous to pick an LG before a primary (remember Reilly/St.Fleur?) and might help Mihos. At the end of the day I don’t see that working and am not surprised Cahill balked. If I was a Baker aide I’d say let him waste his warchest now, it won’t get refilled. I agree with Sabutai that the Dagget effect will likely stymie Cahill-his base is not broad enough.
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p>What Baker should do is recruit a leftist candidate to out flank Deval-there is a lot of room on the left side of the electorate.
That’s the truth.
Cahill rejecting Baker is an major embarrassment for Baker because it was a calculated move by Baker in which he gambled and lost. This is on line with Tom Reilly trying to pick St. Fleur in 2006.
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p>The biggest suprise is how Baker and his camp assumes that he will win the nomination, but according to David Paleogeos, an esteemed national pollster who conducted the Suffolk University poll, Mihos is beating Baker in the poll for the GOP nomination. Baker is succeptable to being defeated before he even can make the November 2010 election.
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p>If Deval or Cahill was smart, either one of them or both should be defining Baker now for his history when he worked in the administration: that Baker was responsible for hiking the tolls by four times and that he was responsible for the failings and billions of dollars in tax payers’ dollars lost on the construction of the Big Dig.