A distinction without a difference. It is like discussing degrees of virtue among whores. MA is overwhelmingly liberal. It is not going to change any time soon.
I've seen lots of liberal rodents winning in areas they ought not to be, merely because they managed to either deceive the rubes, run against a damaged GOP incumbent, caught a wave, and then used incumbency to keep them in office.
Maybe that is what Ogonowski is trying to do.
In that district, ANY Republican running a respectable campaign is going to get at minimum, 35% of the vote.
Do you have any data to support that assertion? In that district, Meehan ran unopposed. In 2006 five of the MA Dems in the house ran unopposed and the lowest percentage any Dem candidate who ran against an opponent received was 65%. In that race the Rep candidate received 29%.
Reagan didn't run as a liberal. Isn't it funny that the most Conservative Presidential candidate to run in the past 40 years got the highest percentage of the vote of all those candidates running in MA? RINO Wishy-washiness doesn't play.
Reagan was running against Carter, the worst President we have had this century. Double digit inflation, gasoline shortages, the ongoing humiliation of the US in Iran, the fall of Afghanistan, etc. had a lot to do with MA going Dem in 1980 and still Reagan only won by 3800 votes, 41.9% to 41.75%. And Carter only won 5 states and DC.
Reagan won in 1984 on a record of accomplishment and barely eked out a victory in MA over Mondale by 2.79%. Mondale won only one state [MN] and DC. Eisenhower won by much bigger margins in MA than Reagan. And it is worth noting that Dukakis only beat Bush 41 by 7.85%. You can't attribute Reagan's wins just to the message he was conveying.
Um, that's the whole damn point. There's no viable Republican party in MA. You don't have an ideologically different party and offer the people a choice, you have no reason to exist. When liberal RINOs and liberal rodents are the choices, it's no surprise that you have no Republicans left. The Republican party of MA needs to repudiate this failed ideology and grow their numbers with a Conservative agenda and candidates.
The party was viable enough to elect Romney governor. That said, until circumstances change in MA, the conservative message is not resonating in MA, the most liberal and staunchly Dem state in the nation. That is the reason Reps are not winning in the state.
What would you prefer, a 90% rodent/10% RINO legislature out of whack with the state's actual political leanings, or a 70% rodent/30% Conservative GOP legislature that can visibly oppose en bloc bad legislation and sustain a Republican Governor's vetoes ?
How do you come up with the GOP receiving 30% of the representatives just because they may represent 30% of the electorate? That is not the way our representative system works. Each district/county etc. elects its representative. The Rep candidates must win the majority of votes in a particular legislative unit. We don't have proportional representation.
It won't change with folks with your mindset standing in the way. For the 35-40% of voters (and who knows how many more that are utterly disengaged from politics there altogether, for obvious reasons of lacking in choices or leaders) in MA that haven't swallowed the kool-aid, I'm sure they would like being lumped in with "whores."
"Maybe that is what Ogonowski is trying to do."
I don't give a damn if a Republican tries to shine Democrat fools, but I draw the line when they try to shine us (example: Romney).
"Do you have any data to support that assertion? In that district, Meehan ran unopposed. In 2006 five of the MA Dems in the house ran unopposed and the lowest percentage any Dem candidate who ran against an opponent received was 65%. In that race the Rep candidate received 29%."
I was referring specifically to the 5th district. I said any Republican running a respectable campaign (which includes financial support), not somebody just having their name put on the ballot. There hasn't been a serious candidate for the House in any of the districts in several cycles, and Meehan only faced one serious opponent in his Congressional career, and that was when he went up against a past-his-prime ex-Congressman Paul Cronin in 1992 (who scored 38%, which was far below the GOP candidate in 1990, John F. MacGovern, who almost beat Meehan's predecessor, Chester Atkins, receiving 46%). Two nobodies in 2002 and 2004 scored at 34% and 33% respectively. If Og doesn't get at least 35% as the most serious candidate since Cronin or MacGovern, it will be nothing short of pathetic.
"Reagan was running against Carter, the worst President we have had this century. Double digit inflation, gasoline shortages, the ongoing humiliation of the US in Iran, the fall of Afghanistan, etc. had a lot to do with MA going Dem in 1980 and still Reagan only won by 3800 votes, 41.9% to 41.75%. And Carter only won 5 states and DC."
The point being, he still won in a very Dem-leaning state, and won as a Conservative.
"Reagan won in 1984 on a record of accomplishment and barely eked out a victory in MA over Mondale by 2.79%. Mondale won only one state [MN] and DC. Eisenhower won by much bigger margins in MA than Reagan. And it is worth noting that Dukakis only beat Bush 41 by 7.85%. You can't attribute Reagan's wins just to the message he was conveying."
Of course you can, stop trying to diminish it. I'd expect Eisenhower to have won by larger margins. MA was still a Republican state in the 1950s. Although the liberal RINO Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. lost reelection in 1952 to his Moderate Conservative Dem opponent JFK, the state elected an 8 GOP-6 Dem House delegation and elected a GOP Governor (Christian Herter) and GOP legislature. By 1956, it slipped to a tied 7-7 delegation and a Dem Governor (Furcolo) was elected. Bush, Sr. did remarkably well against a homestate candidate (of course, Bush was born in MA), who was quite unpopular by the end of his final term.
"The party was viable enough to elect Romney governor."
The "party" didn't elect Romney. There was no party to give necessary support to him. Romney was elected as an "Oppositionist" (to borrow the phrase the Republicans were in that nebulous period between their rise and the dissolution of the Whigs) by his own accord and own money.
"That said, until circumstances change in MA, the conservative message is not resonating in MA, the most liberal and staunchly Dem state in the nation. That is the reason Reps are not winning in the state."
The whole point is to change the circumstances. Don't change the circumstances, and the circumstances won't be changed. Sometimes it's not the message but the messenger. Don't have the right messengers to carry it and not enough $$ to get the word out and turn the people out to vote and don't be surprised when the cause fails. I've offered ideas to doing something about it, what are yours besides stating "things will never change" and other mocking statements ? How 'bout offering positives and not negatives ?
"How do you come up with the GOP receiving 30% of the representatives just because they may represent 30% of the electorate? That is not the way our representative system works. Each district/county etc. elects its representative. The Rep candidates must win the majority of votes in a particular legislative unit. We don't have proportional representation."
I made the suggestion of proportional representation in the state to counteract the lopsided majorities that are unrepresentative of the overall voters. In any event, I cited the 30% as a goal, and what you have to do is target potential districts that have the potential to elect Conservatives and go after them with the candidates, the bucks, and the support. After all, if we managed to get 40% of the Senate as recently as the 1990 elections and nearly 25% of the House just in negative reaction to Dukakis, imagine what we can get going after seats with a positive agenda and hard work. Either we choose to pursue it, or we do it your way and do nothing and acknowledge "we're doomed." Brother, if we had taken that approach with Southern states beginning in the 1950s, places like South Carolina would still look like MA does today with respect to a Democrat deathgrip, rather than being a heavily GOP state. Remember, friend, the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.