GOP Still Weak in Massachusetts
Politico reports:
One year after the euphoria surrounding Scott Brown’s stunning upset Senate special election victory for the late Sen. Ted Kennedy’s seat, long-suffering Massachusetts Republicans find themselves back in a familiar place: largely irrelevant, out of power, and worried about the future.
Now, frustration over the inability to build on Brown’s win—highly vulnerable Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick was reelected, the GOP actually lost ground in the state Senate and Democrats held onto all ten of the state’s Congressional districts, including an open seat in an area of the state that was a Brown stronghold—has boiled into a party chairmanship fight between moderate and grassroots conservative forces.
GOP chairwoman Jennifer Nassour, a moderate reformer at the end of her first term, is being challenged by a tea party-inspired candidate in a Thursday showdown where the state committee’s 80 members will determine the direction of the party and the pace of change in a place that hasn’t been friendly territory for Republicans – aside from Brown.
“I think the tea party is looking for some respect and some legitimacy through the state party,” said GOP consultant Spencer Kimball.
“I see us at a crossroads,“ said Bill McCarthy, the former community college professor and self-described tea partier challenging Nassour. “I don’t see us working to build up our relationships and our partnerships with the tea parties. Those people are motivated, they’re concerned, they want more fiscal responsibility and they want transparency.”
