In todays Boston Globe Magazine, writer Charlie Pierce takes a look at the moribund Massachusetts Republican Party and claims to see the seed of a national Republican rennaissance. Let's follow the bouncing ball and see if Charlie found a pony, or a pile of nothing.
I like Charlie Pierce's writing - he was mean snarky before it was fashionable. That said, I'm not sure why the hell he wrote this article because there's nothing to it.
The nominal excuse for the article is an interview with Charlie Baker, CEO of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and the current Great White Hope of the MA Republican Party. More than once, Baker states quite clearly that his status as Great White Hope says more about the pathetic state of the party than it does about him.
Here's what Baker has to say about Republicanism - referring to a hypothetical Republican candidate:
The big problem he’s going to have – and that Republicans in Massachusetts in general have had – is that the message of the national party doesn’t play well here, and it creates a huge problem for anyone here who is a Republican
here's another:
It would have been a bad time to be a Republican [candidate], anyway. I don’t care who you are. The scandals in Washington and the war in Iraq and the message from the national party. The problem that creates is that every party needs a story, and the Republican story in Massachusetts was discipline – fiscal discipline – and nonwackiness on the social issues. Somewhere near the middle, where most people are. Then you have this Republican overhang coming from Washington, which was not moderate on social stuff and includes a huge federal deficit, and war and corruption and scandal
Let's see, the national party is wrong on fiscal issues, Iraq and all the social issues. The obvious unasked question is: "Dude - where's your integrity?" Your party's wrong on everything. Why are you a member?
And here's Pierce's deep insight into where and how the Republican comeback starts:
But, in what Baker says, it’s possible that the way out of the Republican Party’s ongoing national debacle will wend through the Commonwealth. Fiscal discipline. Nonwackiness. Even with Mitt Romney playing us for laughs before the descendants of Preston Brooks down South, maybe the time’s coming for Republicans around the country to listen to ours and stop beating them over the head.
And there the article ends, that's it. That's where the renaissance starts. Fiscal discipline. Nonwackiness.
Deep Charles. I've examined those three words quite deeply, and I think we can declare this a false alarm. The seeds of a Republican comeback in Massachusetts, or anywhere else, have not been found. Nothing to see here. Move on.