The Boston Globe is reporting this morning (paywall) on the internecine warfare that has already begun inside the Massachusetts GOP in the wake of last Tuesday's stunning defeats. Kossacks are already familiar with Elizabeth Warren's 7.4 point win over barncoat Scottie Brown, but that only begins to tell the story of just how badly the state's Republicans took it on the chin. State Senator Richard Tisei, an openly gay Republican, minority leader of the state Senate, moderate on social issues though quite in line with his party's overall fiscal policy, narrowly lost to Rep. John Tierney, despite Tierney having been embroiled in an illegal gambling scandal run by his brothers-in-law and that resulted in his wife's brief imprisonment. State Republicans also lost four seats in the State Legislature that they had picked up in the Tea Party wave election two years ago, a loss they can ill afford given that they only held 33 of the body's 160 seats.
The question facing Massachusetts Republicans, then, is their party's relevance as a viable political force. It's worth remembering that the party, while weak in the state, has enjoyed some success, especially at the gubernatorial level -- not just Romney, but recent Republican governors include Jane Swift, Paul Cellucci, and William Weld. And, of course, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Massachusetts formed part of the Republican heartland -- until Richard Nixon's southern strategy turned the party over to racists and evangelical Christians.
How Massachusetts Republicans are confronting their crisis on the flip...
Basically, the choice facing the party today is whether to embrace the rightwing crazies that run the national party, or to consolidate their own socially moderate and fiscally conservative message. Anybody with an ounce of sense would realize the latter is their best possible option -- both Brown and Tisei were defeated when Warren and Tierney effectively nationalized their races, tying their Republican opponents to the Akins and Mourdocks and climate deniers of the national GOP. There is clearly a wing of the state Republican Party that realizes this. For example, the Globe quotes Jennifer Nassour, a past chairwoman of the state GOP:
Our message is not appealing to people. It’s not resonating... What I saw happening in Massachusetts was not a reflection on Scott or Richard [Tisei].
Is that the majority opinion, however? The Globe gives a good indication that it is not. Dave Kopacz, president of the tea-tinged Massachusetts Republican Assembly (self-identified as the "Republican wing of the Republican Party") says:
Trying to out-Democrat the Democrats is no way to define and strengthen Massachusetts Republicanism.
Kopacz and his pals are trying to force the resignation of the state party chairman, and tomorrow:
state committee members are scheduled to consider adopting the national party’s platform — a vote the party had postponed from September until after the election. The platform, which calls for a ban on abortion with no exceptions in cases of rape or incest or to save the life of the mother, was viewed as so extreme that it caused controversy nationally and both Brown and Tisei separately spoke out against it.
Conservative activists point out that the party's standard bearers ran on a moderate platform and got defeated. Tea-tinged state committeewoman Patricia Doherty pointed to the defeats of Brown and Tisei and said:
I’m not in the habit of pointing to failures and saying, ‘Let’s do it again.’
Personally, I think the state GOP should split from the national party, but it doesn't look like that's about to happen. Rather, if I had to put down money, I'd say the crazies are about to double down on the crazy. And all that will do is consolidate our Democratic majority in the state for years to come.
Stocked up on popcorn, and awaiting the outcome...