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In “Super Tuesday” elections: Mass. Governor & GOP establishment purging party of pro-family conservatives. The “Republican establishment” at work.

RINO Governor funding social “moderates” in State Committee races to fundamentally transform the Party.

If you live in Mass., you must pay attention! See voter list below.

POSTED: February 28 2016

On Tuesday, March 1, pro-family conservatives in several states will be voting in the “Super Tuesday” Republican presidential primary. For many, it’s a referendum on the wayward GOP establishment.

But in the long run this is a bigger battle than most people realize. In today’s political landscape, the GOP establishment (and its donor class) increasingly considers dealing with the “social issues” to be a political liability. So they want to get them off the table. And as usual, what’s happening now in Massachusetts is – or soon will be – happening across America.

Boston Globe article from Feb. 19. Even the liberal media seems pretty shocked.

In Tuesday’s elections in Massachusetts, liberal GOP Governor Charlie Baker and his political team are conducting an unprecedented large-scale, state-wide campaign to purge all social conservatives from having any significant voice in the State Party.

Baker and his people have recruited hand-picked political “moderates,” answerable to Baker, to run against social conservatives in the local Republican State Committee elections across the state. He is funding their election expenses, and his people are coordinating their campaigns. Baker is also helping a number of current RINO State Committee members fend off challenges from grassroots conservatives in their districts.

No one we’ve talked to can remember a Governor ever getting publicly involved in State Committee races. Baker’s goal is to re-cast the Party as a rubber stamp to his socially liberal beliefs.

The battleground: The GOP State Committee

The 80-person Republican State Committee meets approximately every month. It governs and makes rules for the Party’s operations, sets policy, decides on the platform, and elects the Party Chairman.

It consists of a man and a woman elected by Republican voters in each of the 40 State Senate districts. Elections are held every four years on the day of the presidential primary. At the bottom of the Republican presidential ballot is also a ballot for the man and woman State Committee positions in that district.

Traditionally, State Committee members are longtime local political activists who have worked their way up the ladder and have strong grassroots ties. Some have been State Committee members for 10 to 20 years. They know the history and the players.

In contrast, Baker’s recruits are largely unknown to local activists. Some have just recently moved into their district. At least one candidate was a registered Democrat a year ago. A disturbing number of Baker’s recruits are state employees, as Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr points out, and therefore beholden to the Governor.

Here are the two competing slates of State Committee candidates

GOOD conservative candidates, listed by town

List of Baker's RINO establishment candidates

Misplaced priorities? Also on March 1 there are three special elections for seats in the Mass. House of Representatives. The GOP has has a candidate for only two of them. The Democrat in the 9th Plymouth District race is running unopposed.

It’s about ideology, not politics

Powerful politicians often reward their friends and punish their enemies. But that’s not the case here. Most of the State Committee members Baker is targeting supported him in the 2014 State Convention primary fight against conservative businessman Mark Fisher, and actively campaigned for Baker in the election. This is not about punishing political enemies.

This is strictly about ideology. In 2014, the State Committee approved a platform that supported the pro-life and traditional marriage positions, though in very weak wording. Nevertheless, prominent RINO Republicans were aghast. The liberal press had a conniption. Baker resolved such a risk must be eliminated in the future.

Thus, all the targeted people are pro-life and pro-traditional marriage. Baker is pro-choice and pro-“gay” marriage. He strongly believes that is the future of the Republican Party, and has surrounded himself with like-minded people. He finds the presence and activity of conservatives embarrassing and counter-productive to the Party’s direction. Social conservatives are fine as activists, but they must be removed from the Party’s decision-making and policy positions.

A thorough purge

Most political analysts credit Baker’s 2014 razor-thin gubernatorial election win over Democrat Martha Coakley to the successful “Tank the Gas Tax” referendum that brought out a lot of conservative voters that day. One would think that Baker would be thankful for that. But the State Committee members who tirelessly organized and ran that effort are now being targeted by him – because they are pro-life and pro-traditional marriage! The GOP establishment is showing its true colors.

Serious statewide campaign to unseat conservatives

Baker and his people appear to have put more money and effort into unseating conservative Republicans from the State Committee this Tuesday than for any of the special elections for the State Legislature during his term as Governor.

Baker has raised at least $300,000 from Republican donors and companies doing business with the state to fund his State Committee candidates. Some estimates are as high as $1.2 million. The exact figure is hard to calculate because the donations don’t have to be reported.

Here’s just a sample of what that money has been buying. No one has ever seen anything like this for a mere State Committee race.

• Flood of emails. Republican voters have received lots of email from the Governor.
  
  
  
  
• Letters in the mail. Charlie Baker sent letters like this one for his State Committee candidates who he says will fight for "fiscal discipline and a more accountable government."
• Slick full-color cards. Only the best, from the establishment.
  
  
  
  
• Robo-calls from the Governor. Listen to the personalized robo-call from Gov. Charlie Baker made to thousands of Republicans across the state.
  
  
  
• Special email reminders pointing to statewide list of establishment-endorsed candidates.
  
  
  

Quisling GOP officeholders helping with the purge

Even more shameful is the number of Quisling Republican elected officials who are actively helping Baker’s jihad against conservatives. With GOP officials like these, who needs Democrats?

Here's an invitation to a fundraiser for a pair of Baker RINO candidates. Note the "host committee" of GOP politicians:

State employee? You’d better toe the line

Lisa Barstow is a State Committee woman from Newton who is unopposed for re-election. She actively supported Baker at the convention and in the primary. She’s now a state employee. But she  didn’t endorse the Baker Committeeman candidate in her district, because a non-Baker candidate was a personal friend. As payback the Baker people have made her life pure hell, as the Boston Globe reports. (And we complain about the Democrats being corrupt!)

The conservative candidates fight back

State Committeeman Steve Aylward (who ran the Tank the Gas Tax campaign and is now being targeted by Baker) and some members of the Massachusetts Republican Assembly are helping the conservative candidates fight back. There have been various mailings by candidates, some small fundraisers, a big robo-call by Howie Carr, and a lot of social media.

But it’s a big uphill battle. No one can raise the enormous money that Baker can, nor do these candidates have a professional campaign organization (run by the State Party apparatus) behind them.

AUDIO: Republican voters got this robo-call from talk-show host and Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr encouraging them to vote for the non-establishment candidates:

The mainstream media takes notice

The Boston Globe and Boston Herald have both taken an interest in this, and have done surprisingly straightforward and unbiased articles on it. As a result, this scheme is not exactly a secret.

Conservatives need to do their job at the voting booth!

If you live in Massachusetts and vote Republican,, you can do something this Tuesday. Don’t let the RINOs get away with it! (We’ll have a report of the results.) Will Baker's mailings, etc., get the attention of local Republican voters? We'll see.

GOOD conservative State Committee candidates, listed by town

(For a more thorough analysis of the State Committee candidates, see VoteCoreValues.org)

Is this the future for all of the country?

Conservative Republicans across America: This could be your future. We’ve all seen how the national GOP has cooperated with so many of Obama’s excesses and worked to undermine conservatives whenever they thought they could get away with it. And we’ve heard very disturbing reports from Republican activists in Illinois, Hawaii, Minnesota, Indiana, and other places that the state parties there are on this same path.

There’s a school of thought that wherever the GOP becomes more like “Democrat-lite” it temporarily helps a few people at the top, but as a political force it becomes increasingly irrelevant except as a vehicle for fundraising. It’s an awful thing to watch the Party die.