Earlier this week, former Senator Scott Brown endorsed Donald Trump at a rally in Milford, citing his independence with which he liked to identify himself, Trump’s first in NH since the Iowa caucuses. Â Brown had previously hosted several candidates at separate fora.
Meanwhile His Excellency Charlie Baker has endorsed Chris Christie, which may well stem from getting assistance from the Republican Governors Association which Christie chaired.
Please share widely!
(Just kidding, Mass. GOP!)
Senator Ryan Fattman has been campaigning for Marco Rubio. Don’t think I’ve seen any other endorsements.
without the eloquence. A loser who accidentally won a special election. He’s good for a tiny amount of media, and he’s done.
And if you think his opinion matters, I’ve got some vitamins I can sell you…
Charlie’s a careful son of a gun. Leave it to him to back a guy who can’t get elected to keep up his GOP bona fides and not risk his “independence.”
even with that state pay-to-play issue. They have been active in each others campaigns.
n/t
Was that sarcasm, because I’m pretty sure Brown can speak more coherently than Palin?
Palin has achieved eloquence without coherence.
Possibly a bit of incoherence helps if your message consists entirely of resentment.
let the word go forth, to friend and foe alike : Charlie Faker backs ‘The Bridge’ Christie, Scotto sold out to ‘Fascist’ Trump and pretty boy Fattman backs pretty boy ‘in the bubble’ Rubio.
OK, got it. 🙂
Fred Rich LaRiccia
Fred, you are talking about public servants – no matter how much you disagree with them, they don’t deserve this treatment.
Chris Christie might deserve the treatment. He killed a perfectly good, very needed train project because he was running for office. He has consistently bullied and insulted perfectly innocuous people.
When not earning our indifference, Scotto deserves our pity.
As a partisan, I can’t blame Fred for trying. We’re still looking for Charlie’s weak spot. If the Globe reports him receiving kryptonite in the mail, look no further.
You might be right about the train project, but I don’t know the details, and we’re struggling with a light rail project of our own. The devil is in the details – and one of Christie’s other shortcoming (aside from his temper) is that he’s becoming notorious for not bringing forward any substantive discussion.
Christie’s action was truly awful, almost evil in its self-serving sacrifice of others, was much worse than the green-line extension, which seems to me like it has more to do with laziness and an unwillingness to deal with an issue.
Here’s ProPublica:
My goodness, New Jersey finances are such a mess. I see the equivalent of a Prop 2.5 was recently introduced; there’s efforts to reform funding of pension plans; still there’s budget gymnastics in the form of borrowing to pay operational costs, there’s unfunded promises, etc. Many things have festered over the years though governorship of Democrats and Republicans alike.
It’s not a pretty picture, and they’re not seeing the light of day.
Look at this: $170B unfunded pension liability, state legislators seeking to be bailed out by the federal government, gridlock caused by Christie not able to keep promises made to secure pension reform.
the state foregoing its contribution to pensions.
Christie is an uber-douche.
I don’t understand why he’s running for president, looks like there’s a ton of work to be done in New Jersey.
I don’t really understand most of these people. Mitt Romney was the same way.
A lot of presidential candidates run to serve their egos. They may also have a genuine desire to help mixed in, but there’s a serious amount of ego. For some, it’s also a career path. Huckabee, Palin, Gingrich, they all made money from running. They got Fox News gigs, they got attention. Ego outweighs the common interest for a lot of people. Recently, this is more the case with Republicans, but John Edwards, whom I’m embarrassed to say I supported, was of the same breed. Democrats typically want to govern and improve things. The GOP’s idea of improvement is to destroy government.
I think you hit the nail on the head with your career path observation.
I can think of no other path that would have brought the same gains to Sarah Palin as the path she took. The same is true of Scott Brown. Each of them has achieved fame, fortune, influence, and wealth FAR BEYOND what they might have reasonably expected from any other choice.
I agree with you that serving the public interest appears to be at the very bottom of the values each seems to care about.
Barney Frank frequently quipped that a GOP candidate trying to govern was like a himself being asked to judge a beauty contest — “We might go through motions, but our heart wouldn’t be in it”.
She was promoted to the McCain ticket to appeal to the Duck Dynasty wing of the party. Many were scratching their head on that appointment, but there was method to the madness.
This cycle, if things go the direction they seem to be going, a Palin candidate will pick a McCain as vice.
I get why she was offered the job.
I’m just agreeing with mark-bail that she was well aware of the career opportunities the offer created for her. I see no evidence that she has any interest whatsoever in good government.
Some evidence that the Presidential race is principally a ploy to build a direct mail list for commercial intent.
in the debate tonight.
After accusing the empty suit of giving canned answers, Marco REPEATED the same canned answer THREE times in a row during the exchange.
I laughed so hard I wet myself 🙂
Way to go, Chris. Tonight, you burst pretty boy’s bubble !
Fred Rich LaRiccia
NOT SERVANTS. And they deserve the righteous scorn and indignation of every patriot.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
By calling them ‘con pukes’? Where did you learn this language?
after getting fed up of Republicans scornfully attacking my beloved party as the Democrat party.
My DEMOCRATIC party is the oldest political party in the world. It was founded by the author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson. It united the country through the Great Depression and onto victory over Fascism in World War II under the leadership of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It inspired my generation to : “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” with our beloved John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s New Frontier, LBJ’s Great Society and Barack Obama’s people powered “Yes We Can.”
Until and unless these apostates return to the principles of their founder, Abraham Lincoln, I will NEVER recognize them as the Republican party. NEVER.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
he also had sex with them.
Fred – do you consider when Thomas Jefferson had sex with his slaves, do you think it would be considered rape, or did the founder of the Democrat [sic] Party not rape them because they were property and not people?
and spew venom, please think about the point I may be trying to make with such an inflammatory question.
” There are more horses asses in this world than there are horses.” ANON
Fred Rich LaRiccia
The answer is “yes, it was probably rape”. Because Thomas Jefferson is not perfect. He was a man, who did bad things, even though he did a GREAT many good things.
Any person can be reduced to villainy if you focus on ONLY certain aspects of their character. My observation is that you reduce any person with an (R) next to their name to villainy because of that party designation, regardless of the actual actions of that person.
If I had a similar mindset, I wouldn’t be a lifelong Republican voting for Bernie Sanders. Thank God for that.
…but you do go a bit over the top sometimes. If johnd or danfromwaltham called our people those things we’d be calling for their heads.
but I will never show respect to the party that declared all out war on my party in 1994 under the right-wing extremist Newt Gingrich who infamously ordered his brown shirts to attack any opponent with a D next to their name as a ‘traitor.’
And these crazy fanatics have become even more dangerous today.
They must be stopped NOW ! The future of our democracy is at stake.
Wake up, America !
Fred Rich LaRiccia
I suppose, if that’s the way you feel, it counts as some kind of self-expression thing.
However, if you care about, say, convincing people or winning elections it’s, well, stupid.
America becomes progressive when people who are currently conservative are convinced to switch sides. Those people are less likely to explore an openness of mind if one refers to their leaders as con pukes.
Otherwise, one is no more convincing than Gov. Palin.
if you believe that ANY true conservative would EVER vote for a liberal.
Get real, wake up and smell the coffee.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
If no one can ever be convinced, then there’s no use wasting our time with politics. Only demographics can save us.
for the same reason my hero, Mark Twain said : ” Never argue with stupid people. They will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.” 🙂
Fred Rich LaRiccia
smarter than either of us.
just one. 🙂
is likely smarter than either of us.
as former head of the Environmental Protection Agency she believes in science and global warming and is an apostate in the Republican Party !
Want to try again ? 🙂
Fred Rich LaRiccia
The point is that you have chosen a communication style as unconvincing as Sarah Palin’s — and yes, I personally know bright conservatives.
first you said : ” there are plenty of conservatives in this world who are smarter than either one of us.”
Then I challenged you to name one to which you responded — Meg Whitman.
I challenged Meg’s conservative bona fides but you didn’t defend her. You responded by saying : ” I personally know BRIGHT conservatives’. OK, my Mom called me ‘SONNY’ because I was so bright but you still didn’t name ONE conservative that is SMARTER than you or me. 🙂
Fred Rich LaRiccia
my comment at 2:53 PM from Sat 6 Feb.
Maybe you think all Republican women are interchangeable?
Meg Whitman is the Republican who lost to Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer of California.
She is a conservative.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
I think you tend to look at voters and assume they have a checklist of beliefs which will always govern their choices and if you look at party platforms you can get the best results by getting voters who will agree with the highest percentage of planks in the platform. On social issues I’m as liberal as anyone on here, on fiscal issues I’m probably to the right.
On one of my most important litmus tests I think Bernie Sanders is by far the most “honest” person running for either party.
or a contradiction in terms.
I have heard this rationalization all my life from conservatives and it never made any sense to me.
How can you be a pro-choice liberal on social issues yet, at the same time, support the de-funding of Planned Parenthood which provides healthcare to millions of women, some of whom need to make that choice especially when they have been raped or are the victim of incest or where the health and life of the mother is at stake ?
As a longtime advocate in the LGBTQ movement, how can you claim to be a liberal that supports gay rights for all while at the same time support conservative fiscal and discrimination policies in states that allow gays to be married on Saturday, fired on Sunday and lose their apartment on Monday ?
The fact that HRC has been endorsed by Planned Parenthood and the Human Rights Campaign means something to this proud, lifelong, card-carrying LIBERAL DEMOCRAT. Or as my friend, Howard Dean would say, the DEMOCRATIC WING OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
For better or worse, there aren’t a lot of socially liberal, economically conservative voters any more. Likewise, the ranks of socially conservative, economically liberal voters has shrunk. Political science increasingly finds that our political life sits on a left-right axis. If one knows your position on marriage equality or abortion, one has a very good shot at correctly predicting your stance on climate change or tax policy.
Of course, those quadrants aren’t empty as your existence scott12mass attests; they just aren’t so large.
Something about Fred-in-person gives one a more complete understanding of Fred-on-blog. I would summarize as “genuine.”
…though unfortunately the Stammtisches aren’t conducive to my schedule.
However, from its founding until well toward the end of the 19th century, it was better to vote Republican. The Democratic Party, at that time, really was significantly, unpleasantly more racist. There is a lot for Massachusetts to be proud of in the person of Charles Sumner.
Case closed, I guess.