The Massachusetts Republican Party has been going through a rough patch for quite some time.
Nothing that happened to the party on Nov. 3rd made things smoother.
Republicans lost one Senate seat and one House seat, meaning they will have only three senators out of 40, and 29 representatives out of 160 when the new legislature convenes in January. Their membership in the upper branch will be at its lowest level since at least 1970, according to the State House News Service.
WBUR radio's Anthony Brooks pointed out in a Nov. 19 report: "The state GOP will enter the new year with a shrinking minority on Beacon Hill, no members in Congress and internal divisions that are forcing a reckoning."
"Internal divisions" was primarily a reference to the upcoming fight for Republican Party chairman, a position now held by former Andover rep Jim Lyons, whose heart beats fast at the mention of Donald Trump's name.
Lyons's devotion to Trump puts him sideways with the most popular, most successful Republican in Massachusetts, Governor Charlie Baker, whose calm, cerebral, non-partisan approach to governing is the opposite of the president's.
Trump has long made our guv uncomfortable. Baker announced before the latest election he would not be voting for his party's national leader.
Shawn Dooley, a Republican rep from Norfolk, will run for chairman against Lyons at the next state GOP convention. "Dooley faults the party," as Brooks put it, "for being too focused on Donald Trump instead of core Republican values like lower taxes, personal freedom and supporting the police amidst calls for reform."
There are also divisions within the current Republican party apparatus. Tom Mountain, vice chairman of the party, moans that the GOP "got completely clobbered" on Nov. 3, while a paradoxically upbeat Lyons claims Trump "has energized a core of Republican voters who will help the party win elections in the future," according to the story filed by Brooks.
Question: Why would Trump-generated energy help future Republican candidates in Massachusetts when it failed to do so on Nov. 3, as Trump collected 1,167,202 votes here (32.3%) ? [Joe Biden won the support of 2,382,202 (65.9%) Massachusetts voters.]
Go to the homepage of the Republican party website, massgop.com, and you find a big picture of Trump, not Baker, the only thing standing between the party and oblivion in the Commonwealth.
In the website's "About Us" section, it says, "We believe that free enterprise, low taxes, and fewer regulations are the best ways to grow our economy in order to create good, high-paying jobs across Massachusetts."
If Shawn Dooley displaces Jim Lyons, I'd urge him to come up with something different. He should consider a party credo more in line with the popular, time-tested Baker model of governing and more appealing to independent voters, something along these lines:
"We believe in spending every tax dollar carefully, creating the smartest, most innovative state government possible, and serving as a much-needed counterweight to the Democratic Party."
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