The results of many races may certainly make us happy but just as important is the feeling that MA Republicans and conservative independents are alive and well. Many posts on BMG from a year ago were discussing how our party was DOA in MA… and maybe it was. But we have come back and the panic and anxiety on BMG over the last few months should be a lesson to all who posted we were non-existent.
You may think I’m putting a spin on this but I don’t care. We have organized, raised money and raised hopes. We ran against incumbents who have not had any serious opposition in decades. We have caused incumbents to spend down their large campaign war-chests which they’ve built over the years taking money from contributors even when they had no opposition.
For the next few years look for almost every seat in MA to be challenged and a new breed of alternatives to incumbents to arrive. Of course, time will tell if this happens or everyone goes back to sleep and things return to “normal’ (MA Dems run everything…).
Time will tell…
and I give 80% of the blame to people like you and the Republican Party. If you win, we will just continue on the path of epic fail as we are currently. It will be no different. The myth of trickle down economics continues….
I don’t think you’ll find much disagreement here with most of that. Competition is generally a good thing in politics as well as in the marketplace. I think it’s great that the GOP has managed to field credible challengers in some of the congressional races, and that it has done the same on some “down-ticket” constitutional offices. I do hope that the newly-energized MA GOP doesn’t get sucked any further into the maelstrom of tea-infused demagoguery that seems to have infected much of the national party; clearly Jeff Perry, one of the least appealing candidates to run for major office in MA in years, is part of that unfortunate phenomenon, but most others are so far hedging their bets. It would be nice to see the northeastern Republicans taking a leadership role in their party again, instead of surrendering to the Jim DeMints of the world.
I think a strong Republican Party can be in the best interests of Massachusetts if it espouses constructive policies and has decent candidates. This can be done, if history is any guide.
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p>What is not constructive, as David wrote, is extremist teabaggers who put ideology before results. To the degree the state party follows that route, it becomes part of the problem rather than an element of a solution.
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p>When are you going to run for office, John.
Bob, you’ve got to be kidding; on this blog you and David put ideology before everything. Prime example is Suzanne Bump, along with all-time democrat hack Grossman. I won’t get into the Cape Wind project which even greens like Jill Stein now oppose. Have a nice day watching the results. đŸ™‚
Conservatives are ideological; liberals rationally conclude that the Democrats are right about everything all the time.
If you guys on the left want to work with the “new” Republicans, I think you have to stop insulting the massive Tea Party protestors who for the vast majority are just regular people. I think you have to stop casting stones at people that are being verbal about how they feel.
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p>In 2006 many people were angry at Republicans and displayed that anger by protesting and giving the House back to Democrats. The masses continued that anger by throwing Bush and the Republicans out of the Senate and the White House in 2008. They were angry and they had some kooky left wingers with posters of Bush with a Hitler mustache… but they weren’t villain-ized. The reverse has happened and we had some nuts with us too but it’s stop trying to make these regular people sound like nuts.
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p>MA has been under straight Democratic rule for 4 years… have results been put over ideology? It’s time to start with more pragmatic approaches to problems and put everything on the table. Pensions have got to stop draining the coffers of money we need elsewhere. Healthcare costs have got to be addresses and I’m talking healthcare costs, not medical insurance premiums!
Not all teabaggers.
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p>The Tea Party folks would do themselves a favor as well if they turned out their more fanatical members. But they don’t, in general.
Using the slur you continue to use is not very politically correct.
in that I didn’t also say it was a great day for MA and America. It’s been 2 years since we felt the excitement of Obama running for President. Many of us were disappointed that he won but thems the rules. I feel the same excitement today in America as record turnouts are forecasted all over the country. That’s the kink of interest we need in every election, but don’t usually get.
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p>I’m with you David about some of our candidates. Both party had some extreme candidates but Republicans had more of them. We threw out a wide net to get as many opponents as we could, and we caught some fish which should have been thrown back in.
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p>Here’s hoping for a constructive engagement of ideology going forward!
even though impeachable offenses were committed by Bush and Cheney. The first thing Boehner will do-if they do indeed take the House-is to hound Obama regarding supposed impeachable offenses just like the Republican Congress hounded Clinton in the ’90s. This is not government for the people. The Republicans pursue their own agenda at the expense of the American people and the good of our country. Any Republican with an iota of common sense should be ashamed to hitch their cart to the current crop of Republicans.
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p>Today will be a sad day for America if they take over both houses.
I like balance in the government and we have just come from a period where there wasn’t any… and look what happened. We had many initiative which the people were against but were powerless as the single party government passed what they wanted. BTW, I think this tone deafness is the basis for referendum petitions.
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p>I’m hoping the Republican majority House doesn’t waste time on foolish things like impeachment but instead concentrate on the issues which Americans have clearly voiced their opinions on by voting in 65 Republicans, JOBS!
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p>I’m going into it with an open mind but I’m sorry you have chosen to be pessimistic. Dems still control the Senate, although I think with Americans voting in Democratic Senators like Joe Manchin, we might have more power than is evident by the simple count. Plus you have the President who can still veto anything he wants. If in two years we have no results, Republicans will get booted again.
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p>We’ll see what the President says today about going forward and whether he wants to work together or continue his path of fighting and demonizing Republicans and making CEO’s and Bankers the villain of every story. At some point he may need to understand he needs the them on his side for the economy to return, not on the other side.
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p>This seems so out of touch to me as to be diabolically brilliant. It is the President who has consistently sought compromises, to the dismay of his caucus, and the Republicans who have refused to reach across the aisle. It is the right wing that, frankly, has been doing most of the demonizing (the President is a socialist/fascist/Kenyan/Muslim/terrorist, etc.). The diabolical brilliance of the Republicans is to somehow have convinced the public–or at least JohnD–that it is the Democrats who have been demonizing them!
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p>TedF
I’m looking forward not back since that is a waste of energy and it would be helpful if both sides of the argument got past the past.
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p>We need to fix things and the people have spoken. I hope the President and the new Congress can work it out… otherwise WE lose!
This didn’t sound like you wanted to let bygones be bygones:
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p>But I’m glad to hear that you do.
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p>You might want to have a word with the Republican leadership, which seems to be misreading the results of the election as a mandate for their programs rather than as a referendum on the state of the economy under the Democratic administration of the last two years. Here’s their priority:
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p>
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p>But here’s what voters had to say:
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p>Here is my prediction. The Republicans will enact new tax cuts (i.e., they will “extend” the Bush-era tax cuts) with the even-more-timid-than-usual connivance of the Democrats, but they will be unable or unwilling to cut spending by nearly enough to keep the deficit in check. Result: even worse deficits than we have now–clearly not what the public wants.
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p>If the Republicans really want to look forward and work with the Democrats, and assuming they are set on ignoring the advice of the many, many economists who think austerity programs would be a mistake in this economy, where private spending cannot take up the slack if the government tightens the pursestrings, then they should trade away the tax cuts they want to enact in return for spending cuts. Even though I think this would be a macro-economic mistake, I could probably support it because deficit reduction and stagnation is better than just plain old stagnation. But I think this is highly unlikely.
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p>TedF
but I think that won’t happen. I also think if they extend the cuts then they should extend them for everyone. There are many many Democrats who believe the Obama Tax cuts should be the first thing the new COngress does.
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p>I’m all for a huge austerity program unless we come up with a bipartisan infrastructure program which puts people back to work building something rather than the program which just flushed $800M down the drain.
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p>We’ll see…