That's no mere suspicion, that's an outright 100% fact. It's not just in MA, either. New Jersey has been following that model. In the early '90s, the Republican party swept to jaw-droppingly gargantuan majorities in the state legislature, and within a decade, it was all but gone. Being led by these Country-Clubber liberals like Christie Whitman (who is effectively a male William Weld) and Donnie DiFrancesco, they opposed new blood, Conservative reformers and openly sabotaged them when they got the nomination (most notably then-Jersey City Mayor Bret Schundler. Schundler in any other state would've been a rock star. An ex-liberal Gary Hart Democrat turned Conservative that became the first GOP Mayor of that city in nearly 8 decades, and turned the city around. But because he was regarded as an outsider, they all but helped the sleazy rodent Jim McGreevey to victory over Schundler, and we all know how that turned out). The party has been shriveling ever since, even against all the lousy rodent Governors. It now is at its weakest point in the past several decades.
"I remember Steve Pierce and Ray Shamie, then there was another candidate, I forgot his name, but it seemed that there was always an embarrassing story about them in the Globe three weeks before the election."
Jim Rappaport or Joe Malone ?
"I think the California party was decimated in the same way. I believe the insider business interests want someone in the corner office who speaks for their little clique. These insiders seem to be more fearful of the conservatives than the Democrats. I think they understand that the Democrats are crooked and can always be bought off whereas the conservatives have principles. These RINOs fear principles the way Dracula fears sunlight."
Exactly. Conservatives are usually the biggest threat to the status quo, since they are reformers. Illinois is similar to that, and the establishment RINOs and the Democrat party are referred to as "the Combine." When reformist Conservative Peter Fitzgerald upended a Combine RINO candidate in the GOP Senate primary in '98, they worked together to try to take him down for the general. When he beat Carol Moseley-Braun, they hated him even more and spent the next 6 years hounding him out of office. He was the best Senator the state had had since Everett Dirksen and because the Combine declared war on him, he didn't bother to run for reelection, and guess who the Combine installed in his seat ? Barack Obama. That's why I always say the establishment liberal RINOs are our biggest enemy, far worse than any Democrat.
Do you see the possibility of ‘divorcing’ the Republican Party? Could we build a third party in some selected very conservative communities and then let word of that travel around the nation?
I believe there are actually four parties instead of two. It think there is the power elite Democrats and the rank and file Democrats, and then there are the elite Republicans and the rank and file Republicans. I think the Republicans are more aware and would probably be more willing to go for a new party. However, it would be interesting to do some surveys of Democrats and independents.