Monday, April 30, 2018

Excellent History of The Massachusetts Republican Party by Dennis Galvin, Courtesy of The Boston Broadside

The REAL Truth about the Mass GOP and the Fraud Republican Governors

by Dennis Galvin, Republican State Committeeman

There is a saying in politics that bad news is better than no news. If that is the case, then the
Mass GOP should be reaping the benefits of a significant increase in publicity due to the internal
struggles embroiling its State Committee. Chairman Lyons has weathered attack after attack. Most recently, several donors attempted to bribe the Committee, offering one million  dollars  to  the  party  if  they would  remove  him.  So what  is going on?

There  is  a  very  intense  battle for  power  within  the  Mass GOP. Ironically, it has little to
do with issues  but  everything  to  do  with authenticity. The conflict has pitted Governor  
Charlie  Baker  and  his faction within the State Commit- tee  against  Chairman  Lyons  and his
supporters, who see themselves as reformers, attempting to craft a genuine Republican Party for
this commonwealth, one that seeks to take  the  political  battle  into  the Legislature.

So what are the reasons and origins behind this cleavage? History may  provide  some  insight.  
The Massachusetts  Republican  Party was formed in 1854, a combination of two political interests, the abolitionists and the nativists. The former were led by Charles Sumner, formerly of the “free soil” party. The latter were the remnants of the so-called  “American  Party,”  led by Nathan Prentice Banks. While the  Sumner  faction  passionately advanced  the  cause  of  abolition, the latter group hung back focusing on anti-immigration. Their efforts were harshly anti-Catholic.


The union victory in 1865 catapulted  the  Republican  Party  into political supremacy within the
Bay State, so much so that from 1856 to 1876 Republicans held virtually every constitutional and
statutory office in the commonwealth. This period  also  ushered  in  unprecedented levels of
immigration to support  the  nation’s  burgeoning industrialization,  much  of  which centered  in
Massachusetts.  The demographic,  technical  and  economic transformations associated with these changes inevitably exacerbated existing political tensions between immigrant Catholics and
nativist Protestants.

The  white, Anglo-Saxon,  protestant male population of the state exercised almost total hegemony in Mass. through the Republican Party  until  the  1920s.  However, the numbers were on the side of the immigrants; in 1928 when Irish Catholic Democrat Al Smith won Massachusetts  in  his  bid  for  the presidency – ultimately losing to Herbert Hoover – the handwriting was clearly on the wall. In 1933 Franklin Delano Roosevelt made a strong appeal to the immigrants in Massachusetts, vanquishing Yankee  austerity  by  ousting  Hoover from  the  presidency.  The  era  of largesse that is now associated with the Democratic Party began.

The old Massachusetts Republican Party was also destined to succumb, as did Hoover. An
onslaught of ethnic, largely Catholic voters flocked to the Democratic banner. The old Yankee
establishment desperately tried to maintain some portion of its once pervasive influence, but
the power balance had shifted. Ironically, it was the issue of birth control that led to the
Republican Party’s  demise.  In  its  attempt  to stay relevant, Mass. Republicans became
increasingly progressive. In 1948 they championed legislation that would make birth control
available to all adult women. The Democratic  opposition,  led  by none-other than Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill,  partnered  with  Cardinal Cushing,  the  head  of  the  Boston Roman Catholic
Archdiocese, who helped drive out the Catholic vote in opposition. The 1948 effort to legalize
birth control was crushed and the state Democratic Party took over control of the state Legislature and has yet to relinquish it.

In  the  years  since  their  initial ascendancy, Mass. Democrats have found themselves under
significant cultural  and  economic  pressure, pushing them toward a more progressive  stance.
The  evaporation of manufacturing jobs in the post World War II period eroded their working-class base. The Vietnam War  and  the  1968  Democratic Convention in Chicago gave them a  new  lease  on  life.  The  party became increasingly progressive. The fall of Republican President Richard  Nixon  due  to Watergate played  to  their  direct  advantage; their numbers swelled in the 1972 state elections.

Many    conservative-minded Democrats   found   themselves without  a  political  home.  Some began  to  shift  their  affiliation  to the Republican Party. This movement was given a strong impetus by the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, who presented a new and more  all-encompassing  vision  of conservatism  than  was  offered by  Republicans  in  the  past.  The first  major  confrontation  of  new Republicans with the old in Mass. came in 1982 when Ray Shamie of
conservative, ethnic, immigrant background  defeated  establishment candidate Elliot Richardson
to win the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate. Shamie ultimately lost  his  Senate  bid  to  
Democrat John Forbes Kerry, but his political venture signified a cosmic shift in the dynamics of the Mass GOP.

Shamie ultimately became the chair of the party and made a herculean effort to push it into a
conservative direction. This effort was blocked in 1992. A former Republican  legislative  
leader,  Steven Pierce, made a bid for governor, running on a pro-life, pro-business platform with
the full backing of the  party.  The  Democratic  progressive wing, utilizing the open primary
process in Massachusetts, moved  to  block  Pierce’s  bid  by supporting  his  Republican  opponent,  William  Weld.  Weld  failedto  win  the  party’s  nomination  at its convention, but because of the low  Republican  numbers  in  the state and the open primary system, Democrat progressives were able to  flood  the  Republican  primary and  block  Pierce’s  conservative insurgency. Nevertheless, Republican gains in the House and Senate were substantial.

Weld went on to defeat Democrat John Silber, who was the last conservative Democrat to run for a major office in the state. Rather than using his new political clout to shape change, Weld entered into a symbiotic political relationship with the Democratic leadership in the  state  Legislature,  which  has extended to our current time. The relationship was allegedly based on a quid pro quo agreement between Weld  and  then  Senate  President William Bulger. Its contours were: If  the  Republican  governor  gave the Democratic leadership in the House  and  Senate  the  patronage appointments  they  wanted,  then the  Democrats  would  be  kind  to developers, bankers and corporations. The Republican governor in essence became the chief lobbyist for big business interests in Massachusetts, rather than an opposition party builder.

Additionally,  the  Republicans had  to  pledge  to  disrupt  any attempts to challenge the Democratic dominance on Beacon Hill. This  arrangement  has  held  firm through Governors Cellucci, Swift, Romney and now Baker. They’ve kept  their  part  of  the  bargain, resulting in the near extinction of Republican legislators.

The fuss and bother that we are witnessing in the Republican Party today comes from the fact that the current chairman, Jim Lyons, has disrupted  this quid  pro  quo.  He won’t go along with it. Through  the  years  that  it  was binding,  the  Democratic  Party became  more  corrupt  and  more progressive every session. The  state’s viability  is  now  at risk. Lyons wants to reverse this and take back the Legislature. This threatens  to  end  what  was  once a  beautiful  partnership  for  some people.
It is no surprise that a recent letter sent by sixteen developers, financiers and corporate heads
offered a one-million dollar bribe for Lyons’ head.

The party, as constituted under its  Republican  governors  since Weld, has been nothing more than a puppet show, a fake organization that  ran  through  the  motions  of being  the  political  opposition  so that special interests could benefit. Lyons wants to change that and as far I am concerned, his continued leadership is worth more than one million dollars. ♦

 

Sunday, April 29, 2018




Do You Want to Learn More About the Sacred Document Upon Which our Republic was Founded? Check Out Constitution Decoded!

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