Massachusetts Republicans are scheduled to vote Thursday on whether to replace their issues platform with the version embraced at the Republican National Convention, a blueprint that includes antiabortion language so conservative that US Senator Scott Brown spoke out against its adoption last month.
State party members voted in June, with just one dissenter, to place the issue on the Sept. 13 meeting agenda. Only one of the 76 members present voted against the discussion, according to meeting minutes obtained by the Globe. At the time, the national party platform had not yet been adopted.
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Glad the Globe has taken such an interest lately in the inner-workings of the MA Republican Party, which represents roughly 12% of voters. I'm sure at some point they'll devote equal time and energy to the MA Democratic Party, which has a virtual monopoly on elected offices, controls all branches of government in the state, and is the party to which most of our indicted public officials belong. I'd think that might be of more interest to the public.
That may be true, but the Globe will do no critical reporting on the Democrat Party. Only Republicans are worth investigating, unless you're a Democrat with conservative leanings.
So you're saying the MASS. GOP adopting an extremely conservative platform is not news?
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If Brown thinks that there is room for varying perspectives in the Republican party he must have the wrong year.This is 2012. And in 2012 the Republicans have gone right off the deep end. This current crop of tea party zealots have a national platform that just simply is not going to work for most Americans. If the Massachusetts Republican platform goes all in, I'm hopeful that enough people will wake up and make sure Scott Brown is all out.
Brown has consistently opposed the GOP abortion plank. End of issue. The platforms of both parties are created by the most extreme elements, not the mainstream.
Scott Brown is endorsed by the largest anti-abortion group in this state. He also gets an 80% rating on his voting record from national anti-abortion groups. He is talking out of both sides of his mouth but his voting record demonstrates what side he actually falls on. His statement is he supports abortion for incest, rape, and health of the mother. This is not a full throated pro-choice candidate. He is actually multiple choice much like his endorser Mitt Romney.
We do not need a Republican platform to tell us where Scott Brown stands. A traditional saying states, "You can tell a person by who he walks with." So who does Senator Brown walk with? He is the darling of Wall St executives who sunk this country into recession. He returned their largesse by watering down the Dodd-Frank Law. He favors big tax breaks for the well off who already are light on their contribution. He has signed on to the Paul Ryan budget. He walks with Sen Blunt and thinks employers should tell their employees what they should do with their earnings. This is especially true of women. He favors bosses who want to poke around in women's bedrooms. He has an endorsement from this state's largest anti-abortion group and has an 80% voting record against women's issues in the Senate. He voted against the Lily Ledbetter act stating an employer's free hand should come before fair pay for women. He does not walk with those who suffered from this economy voting against the Jobs Bill 3 times. He does not walk with our gay and lesbian community taking the position against gay marriage. The list is longer but who he is politcally can be verified at votesmart.org, an impartial organization that sets out legislator's votes, policies, and support groups. So Scott Brown talks the talk but does not walk the walk. His Joe Sixpack ads are hiding his real voting record and who supports him. Check it out.
OETKB: How long have you been Warren's campaign manager? I especially like this one: "He favors bosses who want to poke around in women's bedrooms." A little clarification, please.
Incredible1: I am a volunteer for EW but thanks for the compliment. Everything stated is documented on votesmart.org. Go read it for yourself but briefly the Blunt Amendment would have allowed employers to limit health benefits including contraception from employee's health insurance. That was not a matter of conscience as Scott Brown states. That is intereference in a private health matter. People who work for someone are paid partially with health insurance. Health insurance is suppose to cover medication that protects your health and consequently allows you to be in charge of your own sexual life. Thankfully the Blunt Amendment was defeated. Scott Brown was a co-sponsor. More ironic most employees pay out of their paycheck for a decent portion of that benefit. An employer should not be saying how one spends their earnings. Their morality belongs to themselves and their own family, not someone else's. Someone who is hired gives their effort and in return expect to be paid without their own private lives being judged by their boss.
Sadly, the republican party has become a party of radical. rightwing extremists. I'm encouraged that Brown has distanced himself from some of their nonsense but I'm concerned that he still walks with them.
... and will still vote for one for Senate leader.
RosePoe, why would you think this is not newsworthy? The MA Republican Party may adopt a platform different from the party's national platform. That's huge. It often is a sign of change within a party. Does the party want to be dominated by so-called 'social conservatives', pro-business moderates, or the Tea Party wing? Both parties have gone through such changes in the past, after all. And while the most vocal Republican partisans like to claim the Democratic Party is the ghost of Lenin incarnate, in truth the Democratic Party is also changing, with moderates and liberals vying for prominence.
RosePoe, why would you think this is not newsworthy? The MA Republican Party may adopt a platform different from the party's national platform. That's huge. It often is a sign of change within a party. Does the party want to be dominated by so-called 'social conservatives', pro-business moderates, or the Tea Party wing? Both parties have gone through such changes in the past, after all. And while the most vocal Republican partisans like to claim the Democratic Party is the ghost of Lenin incarnate, in truth the Democratic Party is also changing, with moderates and liberals vying for prominence.
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People who live in glass houses shouldn't, but if they do, then they shouldn't throw stones. If obsession with social issues constitutes extremism, the Left-Fest recently thrown by the Democrats was by far the most extreme political convention in my lifetime. At times it appeared as a Planned Parenthood-sponsored "Free Contraception, free Abortion All The Time" rally. A barometer of the degree to which the extremist elements of the party have taken over, and the disdain with which they treat the real problems facing the rest of us, was the presence of Sandra Fluke as a prime-time speaker. Consider: the country faces the greatest economic crises since the Great Depression; 21 million Americans are unemployed; many others are so demoralized by the economic blight that they have given up even looking for work; the national debt breeches the $16 trillion mark. So what does the Democrat Party do? It invites a woman with no record of accomplishment and limited life lessons to give an address remarkable for its stridency and lack of content and whose prevailing theme, in the words of Mark Steyn, is "that the most urgent need facing the Brokest Nation in History is for someone else to pay for the contraception of 30-year-old children." And I'm supposed to believe that the Republican Party is extreme?
Sandra Fluke is a graduate of Georgetown Law school and had the courage to defy an all male panel's view on whether contraception is necessary for any couple's life. The extremism came from Rush Limbaugh and our own Senator via the Blunt Amendment. You must be even further right than those two.
LeoTheLion4 - you're the one focusing on reproductive rights. The DNC was mostly focused on jobs and the economy. Gays, God, Guns, and Abortion have always been and always will be tools used by the extreme right as bait to lure votes out of the most ignorant and uneducated Americans. It hides the *real* agenda of leveraging the resources of our nation for their personal enrichment. They really need to get voted out of existence, replaced with a more moderate party - like the GOP of the Eisenhower era.
Scotty wouldn't be the first pol to change parties.
But then again he isn't a dem either so maybe he sould be INDEPENDENT.