Face it, the Mass GOP has become a joke. The national party is now dominated by social conservatives, who want the government to legislate morality. It may work in the south and in Utah, but New England conservatives have traditionally been a low-tax, pro-business party that also wants to keep the government out of your private life.
There are still a bunch of old-time New England Republicans around, but most of them have enrolled and run as Democrats. That, alone, has killed the GOP as an effective party in Massachusetts.
So what do we do? Given the small size of the Mass. GOP, I have always thought that a small band of progressives could enroll in the party, run candidates for state and local committee, and take it over without much problem. I mean, how many people does it take to fill a phone booth? We would embrace the Progressive spirit of Teddy Roosevelt, and confound the rest of the nation in the process. But, I admit, it is a silly idea.
The real solution is slightly less radical. Abolish the Massachusetts Republican Party. Well, not really, but we could eliminate the need for the GOP to seed one of the two candidates in the final election.
If we converted all of our state and federal elections to non-partisan elections, we could have two strong candidates in every general election. If Tuesday’s primary was truly non-partisan, and everyone was on the same ballot, chances are that Coakley and Capuano would be the top two vote getters. We could then spend the next month making a decision between Coakley and Capuano, freed from the Democratic and GOP pretenders. We could have good, thoughtful 1:1 debates. It would be fun, and it would be good for democracy.
So, what do you think? Do you want Coakley-Brown, Capuano-Brown, or Coakley-Capuano? Which race would be best for democracy in Massachusetts?
Then, no question, the best thing is a real GOP nominee. Presumably it will be Brown, and he gets almost a month of widespread media coverage of his message.
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p>We should be glad that Steve Pagliuca ran as a Democrat, not a moderate Republican. If he did, he would own the state party overnight, bring some glamour to it through the Celtics, and presumably be throwing around similar cash.
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p>Of course he would be pro-choice, and that would ruffle some national GOP feathers, but Bill Weld did OK.
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I wonder if the GOP that elected Weld still exists, even at the state level. If you read the RMG discussion of Tisei, his real sin is being soft on choice. Gay marriage, too.
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p>Even back then Weld was denied a speaking slot at the RNC due to his pro-choice views. And, of course, Jesse Helms blocked Weld’s ambassadorship to Mexico due to his social positions.
But change would help them, and a guy with local cred and social moderation throwing around money would help.
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…at both state and national levels – a progressive party that sheds its Blue Dogs, who in turn make the GOP reasonably conservative and shoving out the teabaggers into the oblivion in which they belong.
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p>Massachusetts politics is kind of like if the NFL consisted of two conferences, one with the Saints, Colts, and Vikings (the Democrats) and another with the Raiders, Browns, and Lions (the Republicans), where one of each conference automatically gets a bid to the playoff game. Now imagine the Saints playing the Browns in the Super Bowl. The result would be similar to what’s going to happen to Scott Brown in January.
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p>That said, I’d imagine the Republicans would be all about non-partisan elections. It would be the only way for them to escape the stain on their candidacies that the national GOP presents for them. Even as it stands now, we see somewhat of an attempt to do this. If you look at a typical Democrat’s campaign in Massachusetts, their advertisements typically read something like “Joe Smith, DEMOCRAT!!!!!!!!!!!!! for Congress” (only a slight exaggeration). A typical Republican doesn’t even mention his/her party affiliation. They are trying to make the election as non-partisan as possible.
My understanding is that local elections are non-partisan for exactly this reason.
Saw a quick snippet of him on NECN and he was rambling. And he used ‘Democrat’ party a la Fox News.