THE PLANK NOVEMBER 23, 2009
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Charlie Baker is a moderate Republican businessman who's running for Massachusetts Governor. In other words, he's got a lot in common with Mitt Romney--or at least the version of Mitt Romney who existed before he thought he needed to be a lot more conservative in order to win the GOP's presidential nomination. But today, Baker struck the sort of bold stance that not even a chameleon like Romney could distance himself from: He picked as his running mate Richard Tisei, a State Senator who last week announced that he's gay. Baker's got a long way to go before he gets the top job on Beacon Hill: he not only has to beat a millionaire gadfly in the GOP primary, but he'll have to defeat Deval Patrick, who, despite his poor poll numbers, is still the incumbent. Still, when you consider all the talk about how the GOP is now looking to its governors as the model for future national candidates, it's nice to think that Baker could set an example the rest of the party might one day follow.
2 comments
It is nice to think that, but Baker will get absolutely no traction on the national stage because his (apparent) poltical moderation is anathema to the GOP. He's from a deep blue state and has a gay running mate - sounds like a RINO to me.
- csmiller
November 23, 2009 at 12:23pm
Thanks for the link. Nice of Baker to do this, and I respect him a lot more for it. But none of this "running mate" means that Tisei will be the Lt Gov candidate. On the contrary, if their is someone else running separately in the GOP primary, then Tisei and that somebody else must campaign and vie for the nomination. The winner of the Lt Gov race in the primary is then the Lt Gov candidate. So what Baker did was symbolic, but I'll take the symbolism. [Separately, Tisei could be the Lt Gov even if Baker doesn't win.]
- rlgordonma
November 23, 2009 at 1:32pm