Why Primaries Matter

A recent State House News Service article gave a breakdown of registered voters in Massachusetts and Republicans don't fare well.  Compared to four years ago,

Democrats up their enrollment 1,453,669 voters to 1,521,487.  That's an increase of almost 70,000 voters over the last four years. No doubt through illegal immigration and indoctrination in our schools (my opinion).

Unenrolled voters, those lost souls of politics increased from 1,948,063 to a whopping 2,135,446.  An increase of almost 190,000 voters.

Republicans meanwhile, lost ground, going from 499,641 registered voters to 470,852, a loss of almost 30,000 "party faithful"!

Look at all these numbers again.  Unenrolleds, people who either don't want to be associated with a party, or feel they are better than those that are in a party, increased by almost 190,000 voters.  Why?

How can a party that had elected Republican Governors for twenty years, lose ground to tax and spend Democrats and to a non-party?

Let's look at it in a different way.

In a scene from Alice in Wonderland, Alice comes to a fork in the road and asks the Cheshire Cat, "which road should I take?"

The Cheshire Cat responds with a question, "Where are you going?"

"I don't know", answers Alice, to which the Cheshire Cat replies, "Then it doesn't matter which road you take."

Why would someone WANT to become a Republican other than their parents are Republicans?  Where do we, the party faithful, think which road the party is taking?

Does the Mass GOP know where's it's going?   This is an issue that precedes the current leadership, so don't lay all the blame at the feet of Jen Nassour.  But just like the Cheshire asked Alice, we need to ask the Mass GOP, "where are you going?"

Obviously electing Governors has not been a recipe for success for building a party, as we have seen over the last twenty years.  As I asked a while back, what's the strategery?

As we whittle down candidates today and end up with our players, we need to know what road we're going down as a party to get these people elected to House and Senate seats.  Will all of the Mass GOP's eggs be in one basket?

The other issue as I see it is that the Republican Party has not defined itself to the registered voters satisfactorily enough to warrant voters to place a R next to their name instead of a U.  Obviously, the majority of the voters have decided that it is better to have no party affiliation.  However, as the numbers point out, Democrats increased their enrollment over the last four years.

What road we take as a party does matter.  If we continue to neglect taking positions that may at times seem uncomfortable, for the sake of people "liking" us, then we will get what we have gotten and our ranks will further dwindle which will make future elections even more daunting.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. 

We've come to that fork in the road and we need to know where we are going.

Please vote today!