Help me out here, folks...all I know about new Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker (the guy who beat Martha Coakley last fall) is that he's a Republican, but supposedly of the moderate variety, which are very few and far between these days.
Today, I read this:
Conservatives buck Baker’s embrace of gay marriage
Governor Charlie Baker is facing accusations of betrayal from within his own party over his lobbying of the US Supreme Court in favor of gay marriage, in contravention of the state Republican Party’s official platform.
Conservative members of the Republican state committee are angered that Baker became the only sitting governor to add his name to an amicus brief that Republicans filed with the court because, they said, it creates damaging fissures within the party, both at the state level and nationally.
After helping elect Baker last November, activists on the right say the governor has forsaken them.
I've been following a guy named Ed Lyons on Twitter for awhile now. He's a seemingly reasonable/rational Republican activist in MA who literally wrote the book on the epic FAIL of Massachusetts' first ACA exchange last year.
And when I say "wrote the book" I mean that very literally; it's 31,000 pages and well worth checking out.
Anyway, he's been a big backer of Charlie Baker and has been practically giddy over Baker's seemingly legitimate moderate/centrist positions:
--supports marriage equality, strongly
--OK with medical marijuana
--opposed to mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses
--acknowledges manmade global warming
--supports energy efficiency, LEDs, renewabls, etc.
--OK with raising minimum wage to some degree
--pro-choice
There's a bunch of economic stuff where he's a standard Republican as well, but overall he seems to be an old-school "Rockefeller Republican" type; basically, the kind of guy I wouldn't vote for but also wouldn't worry about destroying my state if he was in charge.
Of course, Mitt Romney governed as a moderate while Governor as well; it's Massachusetts, after all. But this Lyons guy is absolutely convinced that Baker is the real deal: A fiscally conservative but socially moderate Republican who actually has both a soul and a sense of decency, and not just for show.
Anyway, haven't heard/read much about this guy here, so I figured I'd see what others think. Any Bay Staters care to chime in?