Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

  • Shop
  • Subscribe to BMG
  • Contact
  • Log In
  • Front Page
  • All Posts
  • About
  • Rules
  • Events
  • Register on BMG

Where do they stand? A BMG project proposed

August 3, 2016 By sabutai 26 Comments

In the wake of the most destructive 48 hours I’ve ever seen experienced by a presidential candidate, I propose a BMG project.  I would like to know of every Republican candidate in Massachusetts, incumbent or not:

-For whom will you be voting for president in November?

It would be enormously beneficial for those of us looking for a progressive government to get every GOP candidate for Congress or the State House on the record on this question.  If we are willing to make the calls, will our editors at BMG keep and publish the results?  This is something the Massachusetts Democratic Party should be doing, but that organization clearly lacks the competence to do this (the front page of the website has a “weekly column” two months old).

What do you say?  If you provide the infrastructure, I’ll make a chunk of the calls.

Please share widely!
fb-share-icon
Tweet
0
0

Filed Under: User

Comments

  1. Peter Porcupine says

    August 3, 2016 at 10:36 pm

    .

    Log in to Reply
    • Christopher says

      August 3, 2016 at 11:15 pm

      …but I doubt many Dems are going to feel the need to wiggle out of being associated with our nominee.

      Log in to Reply
    • SomervilleTom says

      August 3, 2016 at 11:46 pm

      I’m PROUD to say I’ll be voting for Hillary Clinton. No reservations, no reluctance, and certainly no shame.

      I’m similarly proud to cast my vote for EVERY Democrat on my ballot:
      – Denise Provost
      – Pat Jehlen
      – Mike Capuano

      I’d happily vote for Joe Curtatone, but he’s not up for re-election this time around.

      There is no shame associated with being on the same ballot as Hillary Clinton. The same is most certainly NOT true about Donald Trump.

      Log in to Reply
    • sabutai says

      August 3, 2016 at 11:47 pm

      As soon as a sitting Democratic Congressperson announces s/he is voting for Trump, it will be worthwhile.

      Let me know when that happens.

      Log in to Reply
      • Peter Porcupine says

        August 4, 2016 at 12:37 pm

        .

        Log in to Reply
        • theloquaciousliberal says

          August 4, 2016 at 1:36 pm

          You were thinking of Cornell West, not an actual Democratic elected official?

          Log in to Reply
  2. JimC says

    August 4, 2016 at 7:41 am

    It feels a little mean-spirited to me. All the possible outcomes for the people who answer are bad.

    I’m sure it’s not intended to be mean, but why put pressure on people who are already under pressure by virtue of being Massachusetts Republicans? I would assume most of them ARE voting for Trump out of party loyalty.

    Log in to Reply
    • SomervilleTom says

      August 4, 2016 at 9:33 am

      My answer to your question is “For the same reason that we put pressure on people who continue to use ‘ni**er’.”

      There are limits to acceptable behavior in society. That includes acceptable political behavior. The GOP has been stretching those limits for years, and Mr. Trump has blasted through and on to the other side. He is so outrageous that some claim he is “ok”. He is not.

      Voting for Donald Trump is not acceptable. It is akin to voting for Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, or Erdogan.

      I’ve been courteous to these people long enough.

      Log in to Reply
      • scott12mass says

        August 4, 2016 at 10:10 am

        I have been fascinated by the brouhaha over the N word for years. I avoid using because I understand it offends some people, and for the same reason I don’t go around using dago or kike. It’s an unnecessary description. But Italians and Jewish people tend not to use those words themselves.

        My problem comes with the use of the word by the Black community themselves. It’s common in rap lyrics. If I went to “open mike” night and recited lyrics, could I use it? Tiger Woods’ kids (they’re only 1/4 black)?
        A grandson used it with a black teammate one time and my ears perked up but when the kid responded “hey cracker” I knew all was good.

        Acceptable behavior has been deteriorating to the lowest common denominator for years, Trump’s crudeness is just an example of our slide downwards.

        Log in to Reply
        • SomervilleTom says

          August 4, 2016 at 10:43 am

          I agree with you, especially your last paragraph.

          Still, we don’t use the word in political speech. When whites like me are doing business in a shopping mall, nearly all of us are shamed and embarrassed when other whites use the word as a disparagement. In my view, there is no “common denominator” that includes the use of the n-word as an epithet.

          There should similarly be no common denominator that includes the savage hate and casual brutality of Donald Trump (never mind his flagrant dishonesty and pure ignorance).

          The nomination of Donald Trump is a shameful embarrassment for America. The GOP did it, not the Democrats. I hope that nobody would object to ANYBODY here using the n-word about another.

          I think that asking our self-described Republicans to explain their continued loyalty to their party after its nomination of Donald Trump is absolutely legitimate.

          Here’s how our President phrased it:

          [1:00 – 3:10]
          I think what’s been interesting is the repeated denunciations of his statements by leading Republicans, including the Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader and prominent Republicans like John McCain. And the question that I think they have to ask themselves is “If you are repeatedly having to say in very strong terms that what he has said is unacceptable, why are you still endorsing him? What does this say about your party that this is your standard bearer?” This isn’t a situation where you have an episodic gaffe, this is daily and weekly where they are distancing themselves from statements he’s making.

          There has to be a point at which you say “this is not somebody I can support for President of the United States, even if he purports to be a member my party”. And the fact that has not yet happened makes some of these denunciations ring hollow. I don’t doubt their sincerity, I don’t doubt that they were outraged about some of the statements that Mr. Trump and his supporters made about the Khan family, but there has to come a point at which you say somebody who makes those kinds of statements doesn’t have the judgement, the temperament, the understanding to occupy the most powerful position in the world.
          …
          [5:01 – 5:28]
          There has to come a point at which you say “enough”. And the alternative is that the entire party, the Republican Party, effectively endorses and validates the positions that are being articulated by Mr. Trump and, as I said in my speech last week, I don’t think that actually represents the views of a whole lot of Republicans [who are] out there.

          Log in to Reply
          • SomervilleTom says

            August 4, 2016 at 10:45 am

            Should have been “I hope that nobody would object to shaming ANYBODY here who uses the n-word about another.”

            Log in to Reply
            • lodger says

              August 4, 2016 at 3:41 pm

              I scrolled down as soon as I read it. I knew it was a typo. FWIW nobody I know ever uses the N word, nor should they.
              When I was a child we used to pick teams with “eeny meeny miney moe, catch a “Nword” by the toe”. We had no idea what the word referred to, but before I was too old to stop picking teams, it had changed to “catch a tiger by the toe”… that was in the early 1960s. I can’t remember when I learned to what the term had referred.

              Log in to Reply
              • Christopher says

                August 4, 2016 at 5:31 pm

                I was unaware of that tiger was once something else in that rhyme.

                Log in to Reply
        • stomv says

          August 4, 2016 at 3:50 pm

          I have been fascinated by the brouhaha over the N word for years. I avoid using because I understand it offends some people, and for the same reason I don’t go around using dago or kike.

          Except that you typed ‘dago’ and ‘kike’ but did not, in fact, type the “N word.”

          Log in to Reply
          • Christopher says

            August 4, 2016 at 5:26 pm

            Like me he may be trying to assuage the sensibilities of others. I would never actually use those words to address or refer to someone, but am not offended seeing them typed or hearing them said out loud. None are nearly as bad IMO as actual swears like the F-word which you will absolutely never hear or read me use in full.

            Log in to Reply
          • scott12mass says

            August 4, 2016 at 10:01 pm

            Those derogatory terms have fallen out of the vernacular and no one hears them anymore. The offended people didn’t perpetuate their use. Most on here wouldn’t know what they are, so I had to spell it out.
            Blacks continue to use the word and then are offended when they hear it from someone who they don’t think should use it. How do they decide? What if Rachael Dolezal (the one who self identified as black) used it? Kosher?

            Log in to Reply
            • SomervilleTom says

              August 4, 2016 at 10:20 pm

              It’s an epithet. Some blacks use it anyway, in an effort to reclaim it in the same way that gay men have tried with some some success to reclaim the word “queer”. The persistence of the n-word is NOT because blacks use it — I think we both know that it’s the other way around.

              It’s REALLY simple: if you’re not black, don’t use it.

              Log in to Reply
        • kbusch says

          August 5, 2016 at 12:51 am

          The N-word does not float about like some Platonic ideal so that we can judge it good or bad, and so that we can take its use by some African-Americans as evidence of its goodness or acceptability.

          The N-word exists in a variety of social contexts. In almost every social contexts that is majority of white, the use of the N-word echoes the racism of a country founded by legalizing slavery and enriched by the tremendous economic efficiency of slavery, a country that emancipated slaves into a system of enforced poverty that was then followed up with segregation, Jim Crow, and the denial of credit. The N-word was used to make this horrible system look legitimate; it was used to make the oppression go down easy for white people because it was being applied to lesser humans.

          After a few hundred years of that, it should come as no surprise that there are few ways white people can use the N-word without sounding like assholes.

          Log in to Reply
  3. jconway says

    August 4, 2016 at 11:28 am

    You all do realize that the few MA Republicans we have have been stuffed into overwhelmingly Republican districts? They’d lose their seats to more conservative primary challengers if they didn’t back Trump. And for what? So DeLeo and Co can have 100% control?

    The Mass Dema don’t need to update their webpage because they don’t need to. You all have drunk the kool aid that the obstructionist Republicans at the national level are the reason Massachusetts can’t have nice things. Why do they need to update? It was a nice waystation for McGee on his way to running for Mayor in Lynn, and Cahill was set up nicely to glide into that seat.

    They have no interest in beating Baker because they can point their finger at him whenever we can’t have nice things and rile up the BMG crowd, despite the fact that he’s passed more progressive legislation this term than Deval Patrick did in his second term with the same legislature. They would rather Charlie stay in power than Wolf or Seti or whatever sacrificial lamb is offered up on the 2018 altar. And it’s because they can blame him when they don’t do their jobs, and take the credit when he signs progressive legislation or they override his symbolic vetoes.

    Meanwhile the most pro gun, most anti choice, and most anti immigrant legislators have big fat D’s next to their names, more taxpayer salaries due to ghost committee chairmanships and lucrative side gigs that aren’t considered conflicts of interest. And there is no infrastructure in place to beat it, let alone seriously challenge it. But sure, some Republicans in MA are voting for the Republican nominee. That’s our biggest threat to local progress.

    Log in to Reply
    • sabutai says

      August 4, 2016 at 2:12 pm

      Perhaps I’m being myopic, but I have a GOP representative, my workplace does, and I have a Republican Senator. And these are all districts the Democrats could win. Yes, I am curious — do these people put party first, or their community? Are they so married to the elephant that they will put Trump in charge of the the nuclear arsenal? Someone else called it mean-spirited, but if someone wants to be my representative, they need to prove they can navigate a tough decision. Any idiot can make a choice when there’s one obvious answer.

      I would have expected that someone being paid to grow a third party would want to take advantage of this opening, rather than sticking with the “a pox on everyone!” strategy that has been a decades-long failure in Massachusetts.

      Log in to Reply
      • jconway says

        August 4, 2016 at 3:19 pm

        No incumbent elected official in either party wanted to run with us or be endorsed by us. For the progressive Democrats its the fear DeLeo could run a D against them and they would lose to low info voters who don’t know what the UIP stands for. For the moderate Republicans there is still a belief that the state organization won’t be dragged down by the national organization.

        In terms of an opportunity for running candidates we have three that are running with us, one against an entrenched conservative Democrat and the other two for open races as write in candidates. if you have any leads I’d be happy to talk to them.

        Log in to Reply
    • SomervilleTom says

      August 4, 2016 at 2:56 pm

      I’m sorry, but I really think you’re going too far here.

      It is not the fault of the Democrats that Massachusetts GOP is in the sorry state it’s in. The MA GOP has, for whatever reason, been unable to even find candidates to run in most local districts for most of the last forty years. As you know all too well, it is impossible for ANY party to be a political force when it doesn’t even compete in elections. The Democrats didn’t force Greg Hyatt to run for office.

      I think that ANY party who wants to gain momentum in this state MUST renounce the hate, racism, misogyny, ignorance, and deceit of Donald Trump. The MA GOP must do it, and — frankly — so must the UIP. The latter is hopefully neither controversial nor difficult.

      It is NEVER a “waste of time” to renounce hate, racism, misogyny, ignorance, and deceit when those are the hallmarks of a major Party’s nominee for the most powerful position in the world.

      Log in to Reply
      • jconway says

        August 4, 2016 at 3:27 pm

        Very few of our supporters, if any, support him. None of our volunteers do and Evan Falchuk is on record saying he will be voting for Clinton. As am I for the matter. It doesn’t matter locally. Donald Trump is not the reason Massachusetts can’t have nice things, Bobby DeLeo is. I don’t see why using Trump as an albatross around the necks of moderate Republicans to increase DeLeo’s majority is a project worthy of BMG or it’s time. Not when there are local candidates, whether they are in my party or primarying DINOcrats that you all should be supporting. Not when there are city councilors who might take on Walsh next term.

        You guys are complaining about a rump faciton and asking a third party to do the hard work progressive Democrats have been unsuccessful at for the past three to four decades in this state. I wish we had the resourced the Mass Dems do, we don’t. And the sad fact it its really hard to compete in every district.

        You have to find locally relevant candidates, you have to fund them and build an organization capable of getting them elected. I am confident in the candidates I have recruited and am looking forward to seeing them win. Maybe that’s the straw that breaks the camels back and gets some reluctant incumbents to break to us, we will see. The us against Trump narrative that keeps getting espoused here really drowns out the real work that has to happen to make this a better state. I get it’s Blue, but let’s focus on actually fixing Massachusetts once in awhile.

        Log in to Reply
    • Christopher says

      August 4, 2016 at 5:28 pm

      Someone woke up on the wrong side of bed this morning!:(

      Log in to Reply
  4. hesterprynne says

    August 4, 2016 at 8:37 pm

    in which Republican elected officials are supporting whom in this Presidential election.

    At this point, there’s little consensus: while some Legislators are supporting Trump, the Gov and the Senate and House Minority Leaders aren’t.

    I don’t think that recording Republican positions in this Democratic state is mere piling on, and I also don’t agree that any Republican who doesn’t back Trump would lose his or her seat to a more conservative primary challenger. The Gov’s recent success in electing more moderates to the state committee suggests that the momentum is going his way these days. Plus, the next primaries are eons away.

    As jconway observes upthread, Baker has passed more progressive legislation this term than Deval Patrick did in his second term with [very nearly] the same legislature. So I’m interested in knowing more about Baker’s fellow partisans, including whether they support the GOP Presidential nominee in 2016.

    At any rate, I’m happy to tally the results of intelligence that BMG collects on this score. Send reports to h_prynne@hotmail.com. I’ll keep you posted.

    Log in to Reply
    • sabutai says

      August 4, 2016 at 11:54 pm

      I will contact my elected officials and email you shortly.

      Log in to Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Recommended Posts

  • There Is Not A Chance the White House is Happy With This Timing (3)
  • Progressive Mass Shouldn’t Back Stupid Primaries (2)
  • Promises made, promises kept (2)
  • IRA passes 51- 50! (1)
  • Real “Center” is Economically Nationalist/Culturally Moderate (1)

Recent User Posts

Progressive Mass Shouldn’t Back Stupid Primaries

August 12, 2022 By jconway 1 Comment

There Is Not A Chance the White House is Happy With This Timing

August 10, 2022 By terrymcginty 8 Comments

Site issue: Unable to reply to comments

August 10, 2022 By SomervilleTom 2 Comments

Why do PUKES oppose $35 insulin for diabetics with private insurance?

August 8, 2022 By fredrichlariccia 3 Comments

Promises made, promises kept

August 8, 2022 By fredrichlariccia Leave a Comment

Schedule F

August 7, 2022 By johntmay 4 Comments

Recent Comments

  • SomervilleTom on Progressive Mass Shouldn’t Back Stupid PrimariesI appreciate you writing this diary. This primary seems…
  • fredrichlariccia on There Is Not A Chance the White House is Happy With This TimingKLEPTOCRAT GRIFTERINO is not the VICTIM; he's the PERPET…
  • Christopher on There Is Not A Chance the White House is Happy With This TimingRepublicans: How dare Merrick Garland politicize the DOJ…
  • fredrichlariccia on There Is Not A Chance the White House is Happy With This TimingThe Court has just given Trump until 3 pm tomorrow to ap…
  • fredrichlariccia on There Is Not A Chance the White House is Happy With This TimingAG Garland just announced the search warrant has been un…
  • johntmay on There Is Not A Chance the White House is Happy With This TimingI would not be surprised at all to learn that Trump deli…
  • fredrichlariccia on There Is Not A Chance the White House is Happy With This TimingCould it also mean that KARM-A-LAGO might want to divert…

Archive

@bluemassgroup on Twitter

#mapoli

dbelsky David Belsky @dbelsky ·
1h

Supporters with ⁦@ramos4rep for 14th Essex⁩. Great day to knock on doors and meet voters. #mapoli

Reply on Twitter 1558493196375687168 Retweet on Twitter 1558493196375687168 Like on Twitter 1558493196375687168 Twitter 1558493196375687168
dbelsky David Belsky @dbelsky ·
1h

More friends of ⁦@ramos4rep⁩ in North Andover. Check out her website at https://www.vote4ramos.com #mapoli

3

Reply on Twitter 1558492505422839808 Retweet on Twitter 1558492505422839808 Like on Twitter 1558492505422839808 Twitter 1558492505422839808
teambrandy617 Brandy Fluker Oakley @teambrandy617 ·
1h

Another year around the sun! ☀️ I'm so grateful to have spent the last year in continued service to my community. Please consider donating to my campaign to ensure our good work together continues! https://bit.ly/3AkbhU9
#mapoli #boospoli #thisis39 #leo #thrivetogether

4

Reply on Twitter 1558491731951325184 Retweet on Twitter 1558491731951325184 Like on Twitter 1558491731951325184 Twitter 1558491731951325184
mchilliak Matt Chilliak @mchilliak ·
2h

Word for word, @CarolineforMA5 & @may4congress put out identical messages today on the House passing IRA. So who's plagiarizing who here? Or is the @massgop feeding them their lines? Either way, it doesn't bode well for the independence of either candidate. #ma06 #ma05 #mapoli

4

Reply on Twitter 1558485824412475392 Retweet on Twitter 1558485824412475392 1 Like on Twitter 1558485824412475392 1 Twitter 1558485824412475392
homesforallmass Homes for All Massachusetts @homesforallmass ·
2h

At today’s People’s Assembly we’re talking about #RentControlMA!!! Our communities are coming together to say the time is NOW to cap these out of control rents and protect our families!! #mapoli

Reply on Twitter 1558485111120842752 Retweet on Twitter 1558485111120842752 2 Like on Twitter 1558485111120842752 3 Twitter 1558485111120842752
kateforrep KateLipperGarabedian @kateforrep ·
2h

Last week, the Governor signed into law S.3075, SPEED Act, to provide support to #veterans & their families in the Commonwealth. TY @RonMariano @RepMichlewitz & Vet CMTE Chair @RepPaulMcMurtry! Learn more: https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/gov-charlie-baker-signs-major-climate-bill-into-law/

#mapoli

2

Reply on Twitter 1558483715629744136 Retweet on Twitter 1558483715629744136 Like on Twitter 1558483715629744136 Twitter 1558483715629744136
Load More

From our sponsors




Google Calendar







Search

Archives

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter




Copyright © 2022 Owned and operated by BMG Media Empire LLC. Read the terms of use. Some rights reserved.