2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Massachusetts Republicans Are Having A Bad Time Today, [View all]MADem
(135,425 posts)Why Mitt got elected:
--His opponent (Shannon O'Brien) was vilified early and often by a sexist media and the population ate it up--MA has a problem with sexism that has only recently been overcome to some extent by Elizabeth Warren. We have never had an elected female governor and Warren is the FIRST female Senator EVER.
--She was an insider from a political family; her old man had burned a few bridges and some took it out on her;
--She was also not a deferential shrinking violet, she had a strong personality and some great ideas (which made her somewhat of a threat to an overwhelmingly Dem legislature, more on that below);
--Mitt came in and manhandled Jane Swift (BOP heir apparent and ACTING governor) out of the way quite brutally, and got away with it;
--Mitt had untold millions and ran Disney-esque ads constantly; Shannon couldn't keep up. She also didn't have the money for a good ground game.
Now, the MA legislature:
--It is overwhelmingly Democratic, in a "weak governor" state. It is very difficult for a Republican to actually "lead" in MA, particularly if they don't agree with the MA legislature's priorities. All a governor can do is use the veto. All the veto does is slow down the passage of legislation--it doesn't stop it. The joke on Beacon Hill was that Rmoney was "Governor NO." He vetoed everything, the MA legislature would laugh at him and overturn his veto. But Shannon was trained by her old man and she knew how to work a deal with her fellow Democrats, which could have eroded the power of the leadership in the legislature a bit. In short, a GOP governor was easier to control, at the end of the day, than a Democratic one who could work deals and make alliances more easily.