Calls for brand spanking new management and infighting on the MassGOP have highlighted the fallout from this week’s election, which noticed the state’s divided Republican celebration take a beating up and down the poll.
“I think given the losses we saw on Tuesday, and the turmoil that has encompassed the state committee and the Republican Party, I do think it is time for Jim Lyons to step aside,” mentioned Amy Carnevale, a member of the MassGOP State Committee who’s contemplating a run for chair, a place at the moment held by Lyons.
Carnevale mentioned she has been having conversations with members of the state committee, elected officers and candidates who misplaced on Tuesday, about what sorts of attributes and qualities they wish to see within the subsequent celebration chair.
“The messages that I’m hearing is they want a party that has the ability to raise money, convey a positive message, and project more stability within its ranks, and also a party that can encompass a diverse point of view,” mentioned Carnevale.
While Carnevale is mulling her determination, one other committee member, Vice Chair Jay Fleitman, has already made his, which is to problem Lyons, a former state consultant who has held the chairman place since 2019.
And a number of others are additionally being thought of for chairmanship, based on committee member Jaclyn Corriveau. She mentioned she’s been aware about conversations the place Bristol County Sheriff Tom Hodgson and former state consultant Dean Tran, who each misplaced their races on Tuesday, have been talked about as potential candidates. Tran had been in search of a seat in Congress.
“Last night, our candidates were swamped in Massachusetts,” Fleitman mentioned in a Wednesday morning e mail to committee members, saying that Republicans personal “frightfully little of the political landscape” in Massachusetts.
“To say our party in Massachusetts needs rebuilding is a gross understatement,” he added. “Rebuilding starts at home. We have to first quiet the divisions of the committee itself, otherwise we will remain in a political wilderness.”
Fleitman mentioned the chairman’s position is administrative firstly, with the goal to make the committee work for all its members and the celebration for “all tribes across the state,” but it surely’s additionally one which ought to be targeted on profitable elections.
“I would argue that the chairman’s personal political preferences within Republicanism must play no role in the conduct of the position, so that no group within our ranks feels that their brand of politics is disrespected or marginalized,” Fleitman mentioned.
Lyons didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Lyons’ election in 2019 marked a turning level for the state’s Republican Party. It moved away from the reasonable institution led by Gov. Charlie Baker to an extra right-wing faction led by the extra conservative Lyons and Geoff Diehl, a Trump-backed former state consultant who was soundly defeated by Gov.-elect Maura Healey on Tuesday.
The divisions turned extra obvious this 12 months, when Baker was absent from the Republican Convention, and opted solely to endorse just one Republican, Anthony Amore, who ran unsuccessfully for state auditor and didn’t achieve help from the committee.
“There’s been infighting in every party for as long as I can remember, that’s not that unusual,” Baker advised reporters Thursday. “I certainly think, and I’ve made quite clear for a long time, that I think Jim Lyons is the wrong guy to lead the party in Massachusetts, but that’s not news.”
Fleitman’s e mail, nevertheless, sparked a heated response from Diehl’s marketing campaign supervisor, Amanda Orlando, who accused him of working towards the celebration’s endorsed candidate for governor.
“You are the vice chair of the party and did nothing to unite this party behind the candidates,” Orlando advised Fleitman in an e mail. “How can you say you’d be a chair who would serve the needs of the committee when you didn’t even, as the vice chair, support the member of the committee who ran for office at the party’s convention?”
Corriveau mentioned she doesn’t know Fleitman very properly, however did say she thinks it’s time for brand spanking new management, evaluating the celebration’s shedding effort on Tuesday to an under-performing sports activities crew, which usually results in a call to “fire the manager.”
Not solely did Republicans lose the race for governor and different political seats, she mentioned, the celebration was additionally unsuccessful on two poll questions, the place it was in search of to stop passage of the so-called millionaires’ tax and a brand new regulation that may enable unlawful immigrants to acquire driver’s licenses.
Both slender poll query defeats, Corriveau mentioned, could possibly be traced to lack of funding, “manpower,” and “competency.”
“I absolutely think the party needs to go running in the opposite direction,” she mentioned, explaining that Christian conservatives might test all of the bins for a Republican candidate, however the celebration wants to grasp “that doesn’t sell here and get behind” those that can win.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”