Mass GOP convention nominates most extreme pro-gay anti-family Gov & Lt. Gov candidates ever

The Massachusetts Republican Party has nominated the most extreme pro-homosexual, anti-family candidates for Governor and Lt. Governor ever to run as Republicans for a state's top offices. Predictably, the results were greeted by cheers in homosexual blogs and websites across the country. The delegates to the Massachusetts State Republican Convention last Saturday overwhelmingly nominated Charlie Baker for Governor and his hand-picked running mate Richard Tisei for Lt. Governor.

As some observers put it, the RINO takeover of the Massachusetts Republican party is now complete. Vast numbers of social conservatives essentially sold out their principles in favor of the party establishment's wishes.

Charlie Baker publicly supports homosexual "marriage" and abortion. While CEO of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care the company had a policy of supporting "gender identity or expression." In 2008 Harvard Pilgrim scored a perfect 100% from the national homosexual group Human Rights Campaign for its employment policies. (This means it even paid for employees' "sex-change" procedures!)

Baker's fiscal history is also troubling. He was Gov. Bill Weld's budget chief during the expansion of the "Big Dig" -- the most expensive public works project in history -- in the 1990s. For the last ten years Baker has made millions as head of Harvard Pilgrim, as premiums went up by several times the rate of inflation. Baker also supports the Quinn Bill, seen as a fiscal boondoggle by many conservatives.

Richard Tisei, a state senator and Baker's hand-picked running mate, is probably the most left-wing Republican officeholder in history. He is openly homosexual and is a co-sponsor of the radical "Transgender Rights and Hate Crimes" bill (H1728) currently in the Legislature. He strongly supports same-sex "marriage" and voted NOT to let the people vote on it. He appears in a hideous pro-homosexual "marriage" propaganda video produced by the homosexual lobby (complete with phony statistics). He has a 100% rating by NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts and a 100% rating by Planned Parenthood. He co-sponsored the expanded buffer zone bill. He also co-sponsored the "emergency contraception bill" that was vetoed by Gov. Mitt Romney. On the fiscal side, Tisei has voted against bills to reduce taxes earning him the wrath of Citizens for Limited Taxation.

Yes, we have. One of our original state chairmen ran for the state senate in AL as a Republican in a special election and won.

We backed a FReeper in a Congressional special election in IL last year, and she won her Republican primary. The GOP wouldn’t lift a finger for her in the general, unfortunately, so she was not able to surmount what was already a very steep hill.

We have other candidates, some running as Republicans, some as Independents, some AIP. Some of them will make it through the process. But we’re still in the early stages of our formation, so we don’t expect that many to do so already in 2010.

Just so you know, we’re not like any other third party there has ever been in this country. We’re what we call a “meta-party.” Beyond party. We make our political affiliations and endorsements based on a set of core American principles, not on something so marginally important as voter registration or party affiliation.

How do we know that the first American Independetalist Party member who manages to get elected isn’t going to turn into some rabid fag-marriage supporter? Short answer is: We don’t.

Only because you don't really care enough to pay attention and therefore actually learn something.

We have a closed party, one in which true party discipline and accountability is built into the process.

We're not an open association like the GOP, one in which any leftist off the street can run for office as a Republican. (And do, all the time.)

If any candidate or office holder we had endorsed made even one step in the direction you posit, they would not only lose our endorsement, they would sacrifice their personal affiliation with AIP.

“The Massachusetts Republican Party died last Tuesday.
The cause of death: failed leadership.
The party is survived by a few leftover legislators
and a handful of county officials and grassroots activists
who have been ignored for years.
Services will be public and a mass exodus of taxpayers will follow.
In lieu of flowers, send messages to Republican voters
warning them about a certain presidential candidate named Romney.”
- Boston Herald, 11/12/2006

"In 2006, while Romney was chairman of the National Republican
Governors Association - a group dedicated to electing more
Republican governors - his own hand-picked Republican successor
as governor lost badly to the Democrat, despite the fact that Republicans
have held the governorship in Massachusetts since 1990. Romney largely
ignored the Massachusetts elections and spent most of the time
during the campaign out of state building his presidential campaign.
He came back and publicly campaigned for the Republican candidate
the day before the general election!
“Locally, this is a rebuke to Mitt Romney and checking out within six months
after being elected and having accomplished almost nothing,”
[Jim] Rappaport [former chairman of the state Republican Party]."
- Boston Globe, 11/8/2006

"Governor Mitt Romney, who touts his conservative credentials to out-of-state Republicans,
has passed over GOP lawyers for three-quarters of the 36 judicial vacancies he has faced,
instead tapping registered Democrats or independents -- including two gay lawyers who
have supported expanded same-sex rights, a Globe review of the nominations has found.
Of the 36 people Romney named to be judges or clerk magistrates, 23 are either registered Democrats
or unenrolled voters who have made multiple contributions to Democratic politicians
or who voted in Democratic primaries, state and local records show.
In all, he has nominated nine registered Republicans, 13 unenrolled voters,
and 14 registered Democrats."
- Boston Globe 7/25/2005

Romney Rewards one of the State's Leading Anti-Marriage Attorneys by Making him a Judge
Romney told the U.S. Senate on June 22, 2004, that the "real threat to the States is not the
constitutional amendment process, in which the states participate,
but activist judges who disregard the law and redefine marriage . . ."
Romney sounds tough but yet he had no qualms advancing the legal career of one
of the leading anti-marriage attorneys. He nominated Stephen Abany to a District Court.
Abany has been a key player in the Massachusetts Lesbian and Gay Bar Association which,
in its own words, is "dedicated to ensuring that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision
on marriage equality is upheld, and that any anti-gay amendment or legislation is defeated."
- U.S. Senate testimony by Gov. Mitt Romney, 6/22/2004 P>

"Romney announces he won't fill judicial vacancies before term ends
Despite his rhetoric about judicial activism, Romney announced that
he won't fill all the remaining vacancies during his term - but instead
leave them for his liberal Democrat successor!
Governor Mitt Romney pledged yesterday not to make a flurry of lame-duck
judicial appointments in the final days of his administration . . . David Yas,
editor of Lawyers Weekly, said Romney is "bucking tradition" by resisting the urge to
fill all remaining judgeships. "It is a tradition for governors to use that power to appoint judges
aggressively in the waning moments of their administration," Yas said.
He added that Romney has been criticized for failing to make judicial appointments.
"The legal community has consistently criticized him for not filling open seats quickly enough
and being a little too painstaking in the process and being dismissive of the input of the
Judicial Nominating Commission," Yas said.
- Boston Globe 11/2/2006

In New York, there is a separate Conservative Party, but I don’t think that this would work in MA or most other states. NY allows a candidate to be listed by more than one party. Thus the Conservative Party can nominate the same candidate as the Republicans, or a different one, should the situation dictate.

Most states do not allow that.

Even so, Massachusetts is a double-extra-special case where a third party might actually be worth it, at least on the state level.

In New Jersey, it does not work, because the nice-sounding third parties are usually run by unknowns with no money, and sometimes with kookie ideas, and the better attempts have only helped elect Democrats.

The best plan is simply to sit out the election, and work to defeat the people at the convention who supported the crappy ticket they came up with.

Pretty much all third parties exist as mere ego trips for their founders and a close inner circle of top-level supporters - and in this statement I am including the Constitution and Libertarian Parties too.

If you changed the "all" to "most of them," I would agree with you.

They exist so that a small number of purists can pat themselves on the back about how pure they are, while collecting donations from the dupes they manage to make.

I always have to chuckle at those who are living in a septic tank but feel the need to attack those who refuse to do so.

AIP is all-volunteer at the national level. We accept no donations. If folks want to donate we direct them to vetted Reagan conservative candidates and to local front lines grassroots folks that have proven themselves to be principled and consistent.

Meanwhile, the actual work of purifying a major party is left by the wayside.

If it is possible to "purify" the GOP, which at this point is highly doubtful, it won't be done by those who blithely accept the nomination of radical leftwingers for high office as the Massachusetts GOP has done in this case.

This brings to me to one of primary criticisms of third parties, which is that they exist to facilitate the lazy and cowardly. It's always easier to take your ball and go home instead of staying in the game and trying to win, even though your team looks like it's temporarily down. Third parties exist because, for many conservatives, doing the heavy lifting of getting the GOP back where it ought to be, one voter and one precinct at a time, is simply more than a lot of folks want to try to bite off.

I devoted nearly twenty years to that project. Didn't work. But, in any case, I assure you that none of our party's leaders or candidates are lazy or cowardly.

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