51% of registered voters in MA are "Unenrolled" (our word for Independent). And I know people who vote conservative (well, as conservative as available!) who will not register as Republicans because of some subconscious atavistic fear that their great-grandmother will come back from the grave and beat the living tar out of them -- I mentioned this to a friend, and she said quite seriously that for her husband, it's his great-uncle.
Remember, in the northeast (does the term "Northeastern Republicans" mean anything to you?), the Republican Party really was the party of "big business", anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish. Until 20-30 years ago, local Democrats were actually very conservative -- more conservative than MA Republicans.
“I mentioned this to a friend, and she said quite seriously that for her husband, it’s his great-uncle.
Remember, in the northeast (does the term “Northeastern Republicans” mean anything to you?), the Republican Party really was the party of “big business”, anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish. Until 20-30 years ago, local Democrats were actually very conservative — more conservative than MA Republicans.”
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There are deep historic trendlines, that may be shattered TODAY...:)
That is funny because on southern threads we southerners are always lectured about how evil the old democrats were and that the GOP has been Jim Dandy cool as grits constantly since Honest Abe and that they were there thank God to teach all the old Dixiecrats lessons they needed to learn about conservatism.
Politics is not straight line affair as your cogent post so nicely demonstrates.
anyhow..I hope this is a happy day for all of us...I used to spend a lot of time in Newton-Sudbury...I can't imagine Mass going this way...Brown must be great campaigner and folks must be unhappy over healthcare and economy there.
You lost me with that one. Yeah, there were some that were against abortion, and against "bussing" (of course, the trash of South Boston loved big government in the form of public housing and patronage jobs, but that's another story), but they were still SOCIALIST on EVERY SINGLE ISSUE. Until the 1940s, there was a STRONG conservative faction the Massachusetts GOP, largely concentrated in the western half of the state. Henry Cabot Lodge the elder was to the right of ANYONE in the current GOP, while statists like Honey Fitz, J. Curley, and anyone named Kennedy did nothing but support a corrupt, paternalistic, socialistic state based on patronage for their supporters.
A socialist who genuflects to Rome and is against abortion, is still a worthless socialist. Such folks that you admire are a key reason why your home state is bankrupt.