Mass GOP Job #1 Win me back

I can’t invest in fail­ure Frank!

The Ver­dict 1982

El Cid: Sire, all those you see here, though none dare say so, har­bor the sus­pi­cion that you may have coun­seled your own brother’s death. Unless you can prove your inno­cence you will have no loyal sub­jects. Your king­dom will be torn by doubt. Thus I can not give you fidelity nor own you as my liege

King Alphonso: What will sat­isfy you of my inno­cence?

El Cid: Your oath upon the holy book.

King Alphonso: You would ask a me to swear?

El Cid: Sire I DO ask it!

El Cid 1961

In the cam­paign for GOP chair an expressed goal of the party in gen­eral and of the two can­di­dates in par­tic­u­lar was to grow the Repub­li­can party in Mass­a­chu­setts and to work with activists who had con­tributed to the party’s suc­cess in 2010.

The events of Thurs­day evening sug­gest oth­er­wise.

The party’s embar­rass­ments of Thurs­day, if not han­dled prop­erly, could have poten­tially fatal impli­ca­tions for the future (if any) of the GOP in the Bay State.

Thursday’s deba­cle left the activists who attended out­raged. They were upset with the bla­tant attempt to steal the elec­tion dur­ing the first bal­lot, angered at the attempt to block the 2^nd after the votes were cast, befud­dled when their can­di­date was made to announce his defeat ad sim­ply out­raged that they had to lit­er­ally scream for the vote count of the sec­ond bal­lot (41−39) before it was given.

These are the peo­ple who came on board in Jan 2010 before the rise of Tea Party Strength nation­ally, they were the peo­ple who made the calls, held the signs, packed the ral­lies and for the first time got involved to give the GOP a sen­ate win they had not achieved in two generations.

It is no coin­ci­dence that less that 24 hours after this deba­cle, despite the even­tual vic­tory of his can­di­date Scott Brown announced he will NOT be run­ning in the Spe­cial elec­tion for US sen­ate.

Facades of unity not with­stand­ing, after a cam­paign where the national leader (Rom­ney) and the state leader (Brown) spent their time run­ning away from the tea party the actions of the party on Thurs­day were the last straw for activists. You can’t grow a party by throw­ing away your base. What­ever peo­ple might say pub­licly, until the party lead­er­ship con­vinces the Tea Party activists they will be treated in an above-​board man­ner as val­ued mem­bers of the GOP, Robert Menen­dez will have a bet­ter chance of fin­ish­ing his term in the US sen­ate then the GOP will have of recruit­ing mem­bers let alone win a statewide election.

This her­culean task can’t be tack­led if the party is in denial. So in the inter­est of advanc­ing the cause of Con­ser­vatism in gen­eral and the GOP in par­tic­u­lar I’ve decided to illus­trate the issue explicitly.

If the party wants me and peo­ple like me they’ll have to earn me. When the GOP can con­vince me that they are seri­ous about grow­ing the party, when they con­vince me they are seri­ous about treat­ing the tea party et/​al as val­ued mem­bers as opposed to a source of temp labor and occa­sional funds. I’ll be happy to return to the Repub­li­can Party in as pub­lic a fash­ion as I’ve just left it.

It’s their call.