Massachusetts Republicans dig even deeper hole

Massachusetts voted overwhelmingly for the re-election of President Barack Obama last week, but that’s just a glimpse of the ever-growing Democratic influence in the Bay State.

Elizabeth Warren defeated incumbent Republican Senator Scott Brown, and she will join an all-Democratic Massachusetts delegation when Congress convenes in January. In the State Legislature, where most incumbents run unopposed, Democrats upped their numbers to 130 out of 160 State House members, an increase of three state representatives, and held their own in the State Senate, where only four out of 40 members will continue to be Republicans.

Even in the Governor’s Council, the panel that reviews judicial nominees, only one Republican – Jennie Cassie of Oxford – will be seated in January. All the rest are Democrats. The state’s constitutional officers – governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, auditor and treasurer – are all Democrats.

This has been the trend in recent years. As late as the 1990s there were two Republican congressmen from Massachusetts, Peter Blute and Peter Torkildsen. But they were both ousted by Democrats. Republican Joe Malone served as state treasurer, but left that office and lost in a Republican primary for governor.

The GOP did rule the corner office from 1991 through 2006, with moderate former Governors William Weld, Paul Cellucci and Jane Swift, and conservative Mitt Romney jousting with smaller, but still substantial, Democratic majorities in the Legislature.

But those halcyon days are gone. Romney chose not to run again and Deval Patrick was easily elected governor in 2006 over Romney’s lieutenant governor, Kerry Healy. Patrick was re-elected in 2010 by defeating insurance executive Charles Baker.

With those notable exceptions, the congressional and constitutional offices have been solidly Democratic this century and, even with Romney’s full court press to elect more Republicans to the State Legislature in 2004, the GOP actually lost legislative seats that year.

Can this trend be reversed?

Republican bright spots

There are few bright spots for Republicans. At this writing there is the possibility that Democrats could be hurt in the probation department scandal if federal prosecutors indict prominent current and former Democratic legislators for trading generous departmental appropriations in exchange for appointing their sometimes unqualified friends and relatives to good paying jobs at that state agency. There’s nothing like a good scandal to shake things up.

It’s also possible that a rising star could emerge or re-emerge to take on the Democratic establishment ,and that opportunity could come sooner rather than later. Pres. Obama may appoint Sen. John Kerry as secretary of state, as Hillary Clinton has said she’s not interested in another term, and that would create a Massachusetts senate vacancy next year.

Weld, who lost to Kerry in 2002 and also ran unsuccessfully for New York governor, has recently moved back to Massachusetts and may be interested in taking another shot at the senate seat. Brown also may be eyeing that seat, and either of these moderate Republican powerhouses could cause headaches for the Democrats.

But where are the rest of the strong Republican candidates?

Just as in most major league sports, good candidates seldom come from out of nowhere and run successfully for high public office. You usually need a strong record on a farm team to move into the majors.

Kerry had run unsuccessfully for Congress previously and was the sitting lieutenant governor, when he won his senate seat. Patrick had been a U.S. assistant attorney general, Weld had been a federal prosecutor and Brown had held multiple offices, including selectman, prosecutor and state senator, before he won the other senate seat three years ago.

Even Romney had some political experience when he ran for governor, as he’d run unsuccessfully against the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy in 1994. He was also credited with “saving” the 2002 Winter Olympics – not a political office, but you can’t pull off something like that without ample political skills.

But it’s a truism that you can’t beat somebody with nobody and with the exception of Weld and Brown, there are no Republicans with any stature who will be well-positioned to go after the vacant senate seat next year, should it occur, or any of the high level offices open in 2014.

Republicans seem oddly out-of-step in the wake of last week’s election, especially in Massachusetts. But if they’re ever going to dig out of the hole they’ve dug for themselves, they not only need to begin challenging Democrats at every level and begin building that farm team, but would also be well-served by moving more toward the middle.

Elections are always won in the center of the political spectrum – that’s where most of the voters are and where, these days, most Republicans aren’t.

Posted by Bruce Garlow on November 15, 2012. Filed under Berkshire Beacon Hill Spotlight,Columns,Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry