Paul Giorgio: What’s Going on with Charlie Baker and the Mass GOP?
Wednesday, April 09, 2014
Fisher has contested the results of the roll call and is bringing the matter to court. At issue is whether blank ballots should have been counted. If they were not, Fisher would have received the threshold 15%, which would have qualified him for the primary ballot. Thus forcing Baker into a primary fight, which would have squandered his resources.
Sacrificing principles for a win
On top of this intra Party squabble, Baker must run on a very conservative platform, which calls for an end to a women’s right to choose and a ban on gay marriage. Based on the large victory margin, one would think that Baker could have kept those millstones out of the party platform. Now Baker will have to spend the election cycle running from that very same platform.
Having served on the Platform Committee of the Democratic National Convention and the State Party Convention, I know personally the kind of politics and arm twisting that goes into crafting the party’s platform. The platform is the party and the nominees’ touchstone of values.
Were Baker and his supporters asleep at the switch on this? Are they incompetent or really agree with those platform planks? The voters will decide that question.
Baker brought the Family Feud on himself. He picked the most conservative running mate he could in Shrewsbury’s Karyn Polito. Polito is a darling of the conservative Tea Party wing of the Commonwealth’s GOP.
Polito’s politics are far to the right of Baker’s. So why did he pick someone he is not in sync with ideologically? Baker knows that he needs the Republican right to win. So it appears that he is willing to sacrifice his principles in order to win. Polito does bring the hill towns of Central Massachusetts with her also. Worcester County could be the key to Baker’s election.
We have two of Baker’s most important decisions to prove that he is willing to put politics ahead of conviction, his platform decision and the Polito decision. In both cases he could have stood up to the more conservative elements of the party and he chose not to.
The politics of the past
So who is the real Charlie Baker? Is it the one who professes to be a social moderate or the one who caves under pressure to the right wing? If he can’t stand up to these elements within his party, how will he stand up to the Speaker and the Senate President?
If the Republican Party focused on fiscal issues instead of getting mired in arguments about social issues, they may have an outside chance of winning an election.
In 2012 Barak Obama ran on a pro-Gay marriage and pro women’s equality platform and he trounced the more conservative Mitt Romney. No one cares anymore about these issues. That is the politics of the past. In every election, prior to 2012, Democrats played down the social issues, such as prochoice and pro marriage equality. Barak Obama actually embraced those issues and won a second term.
Outside of a very few very conservative groups of voters no one cares anymore about these issues. People just need to talk to their children to find out what America and American’s are thinking.
I will tell you this, they are not talking about anti-choice and they don’t give a hoot about gay marriage. Most of the twenty something’s, likely have already attended a same sex wedding.
Charlie, Massachusetts voters want a Governor who leads, not one who caves in.
Paul Giorgio is a longtime Democratic Party Activist who has worked on numerous campaigns. He was a Lead Advance Person for President Clinton & Vice President Gore. He was Deputy Director of Special Events for President Clinton’s first Inauguration. He has been elected a delegate to numerous Democratic National Conventions and recently served as one of President Obama’s representatives on the Platform Committee. In 2013 he was chosen as a Presidential Elector. He is the President of Pagio, Inc., publishers of Pulse Magazine, Vitality Magazine and Worcester Medicine.
Related Slideshow: Central MA State Legislature Candidates’ Campaign Finances
The candidates listed below represent the Massachusetts candidates who filed papers with the Board of Elections as of March 27, 2014. Since Campaign Finance Reports are filed bi-annually, reports are not available for those who filed after December 31, 2013.
The slides below list the candidates ending balance for the most recent filing period. Full reports are available through the The Massachusetts Office of Campaign & Political Finance by following the links provided
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