Disappointing Leadership

Gee (0.00 / 0)

Why do you want to blame other people when a candidate loses - do you ever want to blame the candidate that lost?  

Is it possible that no matter what anyone outside of the candidate or the candidate's committee could do, that candidate was still going to lose?  

Having a candidate actually flip-off the electorate during a debate doesn't help.  

Nor does a candidate almost get debarred, have a condo go into foreclosure - stay in the race and then bow out of the race only so someone can quickly try and mount a campaign at the last minute.  

I think it's fair to say, maybe this group or this PAC or the party could do more - but to blame the outsides groups for a loss - that's crazy.

What ever happened to being the party of individual responsibility?  

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by: plymouth99 @ Thu Feb 07, 2013 at 17:02:43 PM UTC

Gas in the tank, but lost the race. (0.00 / 0)

It is great to finish a contest like an indy 500 or nascar event, but if you end with a lot of gasoline in your tank but no win, it really is a loss. We had a reduction in numbers, so no matter how you want to spin it, we lost.

A Democrat superPAC targeted people and we did not answer the call to help them out. There is no excuse for that!

Net loss in the number of seats occurred in the last election and they had gasoline in the tank at the end. If the tank was empty or nearly empty, we couldn't gripe about it.

Some of the races we lost were very very tight. Within a few hundred votes. $7k spent in one of those races to fight the lies being told about our candidate would have easily turned it into a win.

Why Minority Leader Jones did not go "ALL IN" is a mystery. Maybe he could comment and let us know?

We can not afford to lose seats when we are the incumbent in the seat. You'll never build a party if you allow that to happen.

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by: rockinrandall @ Thu Feb 07, 2013 at 17:14:55 PM UTC

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Nothing to argue with there. (0.00 / 0)

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by: Term Limits @ Fri Feb 08, 2013 at 06:38:10 AM UTC

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"Nothing to argue with there" - Term Limits (0.00 / 0)

I'm still looking.

Molon Labe

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by: Republican Ram Rod Radio @ Mon Feb 11, 2013 at 16:40:22 PM UTC

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Fund our candidates (0.00 / 0)

During the 2012 election cycle, some candidates were told Brad Jones did not have money. Clearly, that wasn't the case and was a misrepresentation, knowing there was $7000 in that PAC. Holding back on funding candidates in legislative races with this claim is misleading. I'm very disappointed in leader Jones.

In a Presidential election year when our Republican candidate team needed all the help they could get, keeping that amount of money off the table is nothing but defeatism. This money could have been used for mailers, robo calls, important campaigning such as this especially in the closing days when candidates were running out of money and in need to help them in the run up to the election.

There aren't many in our Republican team caucus to begin with. Every seat is important. There aren't enough of us ! Everyone knew the Freshmen would be targeted the most. Yet, there is this hold back !! WHY ?? We had strong candidates running as challengers as well, and they were told as well the money wasn't there. Not the case. Some challengers could have made it if they received the support.

This is extremely disappointing and disingenuous of our leadership in the House. We expect much better. Leader Jones should be doing all he can to help our Republican team compete and win. Instead, valuable funds are held back while we watch Democrat Super PACs pound and pound against us. This is disgraceful.

Everyone in the Republican grassroots was doing all they could through volunteer work and donations to get their candidates elected. It was give, give, give in every way to the point of exhaustion.

We want to win and our candidates want to win. We want Brad Jones and the leadership to have the same mindset and do all they can to help. That's missing, and it's a shame. No wonder we have such difficulty finding candidates. This needs to change right away if we are to come back as a Party and be successful.

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by: PrivateSector @ Thu Feb 07, 2013 at 18:27:25 PM UTC

Deserved vs Undeserved Criticism (0.00 / 0)

Let me start with I have lost confidence in minority leader Jones and have previously written on my disappointment with his leadership, and there is plenty with which to criticize him.  However, the House PAC is not one.  They raised and spent a good amount of money, much of it from the Rep's campaign accounts with Rep. Jones contributing more than $2,500 from his campaign account.  We need to encourage more of this work both here and with the State Senate PAC where Bruce Tarr did, in my opinion, a poor job with the PAC last cycle raising only about $8,000.

Now if you want to criticize minority leader Jones feel free:

1). His work on the health care cost containment bill with Gov. Patrick resulted in a law that is against the ideals of Republicans throughout the state.  Shame on him.

2). He supports the establishment and is a senior member thereof.  The very establishment that took rightfully won seats to the RNC from Liberty Activists and installed their hand picked candidates who failed to bring enough support to the caucuses.

3). He punishes those Reps who dare to oppose him or his people in any way.  Look for him to treat harshly those reps who supported Rick Green in the Mass GOP Chair race.  Not exactly and act of unity.

4). He appears to be content in leading a small minority and being buddies with the Dem leadership in the House rather than taking them on and making principled stands on issues.  How about a minority budget?  Yes, it will take work but he could pull staff together to do a segment of the budget to show how the Republican approach differs from the Dems.  Instead he will wait his turn and submit amendments that he knows have no chance of passing to say 'oh well we tried'.  This laziness has to stop!

So criticize him all you want, but the PAC is not the best target as he actually did something there.

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by: ConsEph @ Thu Feb 07, 2013 at 19:46:03 PM UTC

Let's get a few things straight (0.00 / 0)

I will not defend or demonize Rep. Jones for his role in either raising money or the manner in which that money was used to fund fellow House GOP candidates (both new and incumbent). What I will do is point out to you some harsh realities of those incumbents who lost:

Rich Bastien - his claim to fame was trying unsuccessfully to legalize fireworks...that's his legacy. He did not seem to be very popular in his district as evidenced by the barely attended fundraisers that he held. He lost to someone who has only recently been able to drink alcohol legally.

Paul Adams - quite simply, it's really hard to understand how he actually thought he had a real chance at beating an entrenched incumbent Democrat for State Senate. He would have had a better chance of moving to the newly redrawn district and run there as a State Representative (as he originally said he was going to do!)

Steve Levy - overall a nice guy but he was essentially a "No" man on Beacon Hill voting against nearly everything that came his way and spent more time criticizing the way things were done than offering realistic alternative solutions.

George Ross - he had health problems which I believe ultimately led to his defeat. While he did some good work with the whole bath salts issue, it wasn't enough to overcome the Democratic machine.

My point is that perhaps with the exception of Ross, the incumbents who lost were weak candidates to begin with and it's plausible to suggest that no amount of extra money towards their campaigns would have made the difference.

Finally it is worth pointing out the 5th House Republican seat that was lost in 2012:

Dan Webster - while he eventually bowed out of his race after seeing the writing on the wall that he would have been plagued with this personal financial/ethical problems, he did so in a manner that gave his eventual GOP successor not enough time to mount a real campaign against the Democratic challenger who essentially never stopped campaigning after his own loss to Webster in 2010. Keep in mind that this seat had ALWAYS been a Republican seat but thanks to the ill-timing of it all, it was lost to the Democrats. This was a House seat that could have easily been maintained by the GOP had Dan Webster never intended to seek re-election.

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by: westofboston @ Fri Feb 08, 2013 at 03:03:21 AM UTC

You are wrong on Paul Adams (0.00 / 0)

The redrawn State Rep district was a disaster, it didn't even vote for Scott Brown, the first time. Finegold is a tough incumbent to beat, but the State Rep seat was gone.

Steve Levy was screwed by redistricting as well. They removed a substantial part of his hometown of Marlboro and conservative Berlin, and added in the most Democratic portions of Westborough.  

(R)- Outside 495

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by: MerrimackMan @ Fri Feb 08, 2013 at 13:55:29 PM UTC

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Still (0.00 / 0)

At the end of the day, one could argue then that Paul Adams was such a weak candidate, he could not have even won re-election for the newly redrawn State Representative district yet somehow felt he could accomplish the even harder task of unseating Senator Finegold? I'd really like to know what he or his handlers were thinking as to how they thought a one-term State Rep. (who by all accounts had an unremarkable first term) could successfully make the jump to the State Senate.

In regards to Steve Levy, yes he was also the victim of redistricting but to your point about Westborough...those precincts that became part of his new district were once part of Representative George Peterson and Matt Beaton's districts so that's not really a good reason as to why he lost when those precincts used to be under Republican representation before.

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by: westofboston @ Fri Feb 08, 2013 at 20:05:07 PM UTC

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