What sort of demented moron would pour a minimum of $300,000 – and maybe as a lot as $700,000 – into the doomed, hapless gubernatorial marketing campaign of a perennial loser like Geoff “DoorDash” Diehl?
The reply: Jim “Jones” Lyons, the bust-out ex-chairman of the Massachusetts state Republican celebration.
The extra we find out about Lyons’ catastrophic 4 years as celebration chairman, the more severe it appears to be like.
Earlier this week, his successor, Amy Carnevale, introduced that the celebration has acquired invoices from distributors totaling $602,000.
Four years in the past, when he took over, the state celebration had greater than $700,000 within the financial institution. Now it’s $602,000 within the purple.
Jim Jones Lyons was a million-dollar mistake.
Under his reign of error, the state GOP misplaced three sheriffs, a district legal professional, greater than a dozen legislative seats, didn’t win a single statewide or Congressional workplace, and didn’t even trouble to contest a referendum to extend the state earnings tax by 80%.
But the one most insane factor Lyons did – even worse than stiffing any variety of mom-and-pop small companies on his means out the door — was losing a whole bunch of hundreds of {dollars} on Diehl, who ran (or extra exactly, didn’t run) the worst marketing campaign in state historical past.
Still, when the 68-year-old Lyons seemed on the proud Uber driver – “Knows English,” his glad prospects raved – he sensed a simple winner. Lyons all the time knew easy methods to decide ‘em.
After all, in 2015, Diehl was overwhelmed for an open state Senate seat. In 2018, he misplaced for the US Senate. In 2020, Lyons himself crushed Diehl for celebration chairman.
Diehl was tanned, rested, and most significantly, his Uber score was 94.1.
The Office of Campaign and Political Finance (OCPF) is throughout Lyons and his Kool Aid Kult proper now like an inexpensive go well with. They’ve requested the native celebration to assist them “identify $372,652.66 in expenditures that were incorrectly reported to OCPF.”
But it will get worse: “Of that total, $300,098 were payments to Mittcom listed as ‘print expenses.’ These payments were actually for various TV, radio and digital ads relating to the Governor’s race.”
Mittcom is owned by 73-year-old Democrat donor Bruce Mittman, who till this week had selfies of himself posted on his social media with each Joe Biden and John Kerry. Now Mittcom is searching for an extra $400,000-plus from the GOP, presumably for but extra Diehl promoting buys.
So it appears to be like like Lyons might have squandered as a lot as $700,000 on Geoff Diehl, a sheep in sheep’s clothes, who was so petrified of his Republican main opponent that he refused to debate him even as soon as on tv final summer time.
In the final election, Diehl barely even campaigned. He was too busy with extra urgent issues, like closing down his yard pool for the winter.
Diehl couldn’t even break 35% within the ultimate election. The election was referred to as 2 minutes after the polls closed, it was that a lot of a rout. Diehl received his hometown of Whitman with a whopping 50.6% of the vote. He even misplaced Abington, which he’d represented within the Legislature for eight years.
Diehl did maintain one sparsely-attended rally in Worcester, at Mechanics Hall. We know this as a result of Mechanics Hall remains to be attempting to gather its $8,242.50 lease – it’s a part of the $602,000 in Lyons’ unpaid payments.
The query is, the place did all this cash come from – I imply the $300,000 Joe Biden’s pal Mittman has already pocketed.
No one is aware of for certain, however there may be one other $119,156 in excellent payments for, because the OCPF audit factors out, “coordinated mail in which candidates provided the party with funds to cover their mailings. However the funds were redirected elsewhere.”
Most seemingly for one more spherical of adverts for Geoff Diehl when he was 30 factors behind, taking the weekend off and calling Lyons to learn the way the investigation into Maura Healey’s intercourse life was coming alongside.
Here’s how these unpaid mailings are presupposed to work: the state committee is a non-profit, so it will get a decrease bulk-mail fee from the US Postal Service. So to save lots of hundreds on postage, candidates ship cash to the state committee for his or her mailings, and the committee will get the decrease charges.
This is a system that has labored for each events perpetually. It’s primarily based on belief – the celebration takes the candidates’ cash, after which pays the printers.
Guess who didn’t pay the printers this yr, a minimum of not all their cash. Two of the legislative candidates whose printers had been stiffed had been then-state Rep. Lenny Mirra and candidate Andrew Shepherd.
Mirra misplaced his recount by one vote. Shepherd misplaced his election by seven votes, after Lyons’ nitwit allies recommended that Republicans write in one other candidate in his district as a result of Shepherd wasn’t sufficiently insane sufficient to warrant Lyons’ assist.
Under Lyons, his faction of the GOP was a cult – a political demise cult. He insisted everybody drink the Kool Aid. Like all cult leaders, Lyons notably hated heretics, apostates, these Republicans who had back-slid into eager to win elections.
To be a member of Lyons’ GOP demise cult, just one factor was required: You needed to be a loser. The extra occasions you had didn’t win workplace, the upper up you possibly can rise within the cult – Diehl, Jay McMahon, Rayla Campbell, all of the Kool Aid Kultists have a number of stompings below their belts.
Lyons and his ilk love shedding. That’s not an exaggeration. In his ultimate speech earlier than shedding his chairmanship, Lyons spoke of his philosophy because the chief of the state celebration:
“Let me be clear, we’re not going to win and even in most elections, we might lose.”
Most elections? All elections, you imply, so long as you had been operating the celebration.
One final unpaid invoice from Oct. 29, for $19,900: to an organization referred to as Axiom, for a Diehl mailer.
The irony right here: Lyons was a giant Ted Cruz man in 2016. He hated Trump. And guess who did Cruz’s marketing campaign? Axiom.
Lyons was dreaming that Cruz would run once more in 2024. He in all probability anticipated to ship the state’s 40-plus delegates to him. (Cruz isn’t operating.) But in true Lyons kind, after attempting to ingratiate himself to anyone who may assist him, Lyons stiffed them.
And now he’s already attempting to take again the state committee. Because, hey, there’s a US Senate struggle subsequent yr, and guess what – Geoff Diehl’s all the time seeking to take one other beating.
It’s what Lyons and his losers do. Losers lose. No winners want apply.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”