Posted on 03/01/2013 6:03:32 AM PST by cotton1706
The launch of Ex-Navy SEAL Gabriel Gomez’s Senate campaign officially sounded the bell on a crowded GOP slugfest — a primary battle that risks pushing the party to the right when the winner will need the heavily blue Bay State’s moderate middle.
“When you have a crowded primary, the risk for a party is, the person who emerges tends to represent the extreme side of the party,” said Peter Ubertaccio of Stonehill College. “That can be a dilemma in a general election.”
Gomez yesterday called himself a Catholic who respects both sides on abortion. He also said two people who love each other should be allowed to get married, in an apparent endorsement of gay marriage.
The Cohasset businessman is in a suddenly crowded GOP primary field that also includes former U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan and state Rep. Dan Winslow. Winslow is a fiscally conservative social moderate, while Sullivan has expressed opposition to gay marriage and is anti-abortion but fiscally conservative.
But Ubertacchio said although Massachusetts voters lean left — voting heavily for U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and President Obama — that doesn’t preclude votes for candidates they might respectfully disagree with on some issues.
“It’s really about how someone presents their position and how they can navigate through difficult terrain,” he said.
The previously elusive Gomez emerged yesterday in three campaign launch events. From now on, expect “multiple appearances every day,” Gomez told the Herald. “You know, as a first-time candidate, we had to make sure that we had our 10,000-plus signatures just to get on the ballot, so that’s what we were focused on like a laser the last three weeks.”
The political neophyte called himself a quick study: “When I learned how to land on an aircraft carrier, that was, no pun intended, a crash course. You just got to go and do your best and you persevere. I’m a quick learner.”
Apparently this applies only to the republicans. Elizabeth Warren doesn't represent the extreme side of her party, oh no!
Translation: we don't want a conservative to be nominated in MA because we think he would lose. Although we just witnessed a moderate lose big.
Looks like I'll be voting for Sullivan.
There is really nowhere to go but up for the GOP in Mass...
They will have the winds at their back for the 2014 midterms.
Then I find out he donated to friggen' Obama. And he runs as a Pubbie.
Only in Massachusetts.
Actions are a good indicator of intentions. He's left of Brown.
15 yard penalty, repeat first down.
I really don’t think he’s going anywhere but we’ll see.
Sullivan’s conservatism aside, I think he’s better known in the state and has already been on talk radio so I think he’ll get the nomination. Not a single conerservative will be staying home in this primary now that Brown’s out.
All anybody has to do to lose political races, especially at the highest levels of Massachusetts political office, is to have an “R” next to their names on every ballot. It really doesn’t matter if it’s, either, a RINO candidate, or a true conservative candidate that’s running in Massachusetts, they will lose, unless the Democratic candidate screws up their run for office “big time” to the point that the Massachusetts Democratic Machine has no time to help them to, successfully, “recover”. It was Martha Coakley who defeated Martha Coakley, during the last special election for Massachusetts U.S. Senate, on January ‘10.
Do you believe a real, government cutting conservative can win statewide in Massachusetts? Come on now, be serious. At some point the best you can do is deny a seat to the Democrats. The left is happy to do that in places like WVA, Indiana, etc. That's politics. Nominate the most conservative candidate that can win, and in Massachusetts that's likely to be a squishy moderate.
Ugh. And Brown is about as left as I can take before I start getting brutally ill.
You're not really alone - Bloomingidiot in NY might be a relative of Gonzalez...
Based on what I've seen in the Commonwealth and what I take as the political volksgeist from my social circles, at least, is that the real killer for conservatives around here is the social conservative side of the coin rather than the fiscal conservative side of the coin. Outside of the cities, Massachusetts voters are fairly pragmatic and especially flinty.
This is the same thing that happens in Detroit, Chicago, etc. The people in these places are voting as much against the Republicans as they are for the Democrats. It's tribalism and generational voting. Most people don't know what is going on. They know stereotypes about the parties and are told the Republicans are their enemies. Where people are reasonably educated you have some chance to change their mind, albeit usually temporarily, if the Democrats wreck things too much. In minority urban areas it is as hopeless as the slums of Venezuela, Zimbabwe, etc. Those people could be starving to death in the streets and they'd still vote Democrat because they believe that Republicans hate them. It's mindless stupidity, but human nature is what it is.
“Do you believe a real, government cutting conservative can win statewide in Massachusetts?”
Yes I do, actually. I’ve never bought the “only a moderate or liberal can win in New England” line of thiking. Brown won by running as a conservative, he lost by running as a moderate. Also Charlie Baker lost by running as a moderate. Romney in ‘94 lost by running as a moderate.
Romney and Baker and Brown (in 2012) did not associate themselves with the Tea Party or the conservatives. In ‘94 Bill Weld won statewide by 70% in a conservative wave year. Had Romney campaigned with Weld, he probably would have beaten Kennedy. But in the debates and in his campaign, he chose to be Mr. moderate, Mr. liberal democrat lite. The same happened in 2010. Charlie Baker chose not to associate himself with the Tea Party or with any conservative groups. He did not support the tax cuts on the ballot and as a result could not create a groundswell of support. In another conservative wave year, MA was not affected at all. The unions and liberals were all charged up because they just lost Ted Kennedy’s seat and the republicans nominated Mr. Milquetoast. In 2012 Brown chose to vote and run as a moderate to liberal candidate (and even as an independent on some ballots). Conservatives (me included) left his office on our ballot blank. He wasn’t worth voting for.
A conservative nominee, with the anti-tax and Tea Party types behind him, can definitely give the democrat a run for his money in a special election. Markey’s militant leftist so a conservative would look like a moderate in comparison. Lynch is a social conservative himself so that would be a tough race.
But either way, the conservatives have to get themselves on the ballot so they can actually battle the democrats and their ideas because a moderate will not. Our governor wants to raise taxes, there’s enormous welfare fraud, payoffs, scandal after scandal. A conservative prosecutor may be just the man to nominate.
The Cohasset businessman is in a suddenly crowded GOP primary field that has every Mass Republican - except Scott Brown - running for a chance to lose to a MARXIST, since Mass voters are COMMIES...
RINOs are a nuisance, whether one hails from Massachusetts or Texas, California or Wyoming.
On paper, this Gonzalez character sounded like he might be a good get: Naval Academy grad, pilot, SEAL . . .
Don’t forget pro-gay marriage and respects both sides of the abortion debate??? What the heck is that??? Anyway NO WAY TO Garcia!!!!!
Markey would be as grave as an injustice to the MA Congressional delegation as Lieawatha. In a world of zilches, Markey is remarkable for his zilchiness. A complete, unmitigated tool.
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