Romney's Home State Jam
While other GOPers took heat, only ex-MA Gov. Mitt Romney (R) was smart enough to avoid endorsing a candidate in NY-23, the race that pitted a Conservative Party candidate against a liberal GOPer. But Romney's run of good luck may be coming to an end.
This year, opponents believe they have a strong chance to knock off Romney's successor, MA Gov. Deval Patrick (D). Patrick's poll numbers are terrible, and the GOP is optimistic.
But if GOPers settle on Harvard Pilgrim CEO Charlie Baker (R), the front-runner in the primary at the moment, an independent candidate has signaled he will make the case that he, not the GOP nominee, is the true conservative.
The third candidate, state Treas. Tim Cahill, is no gadfly. He already has $3.2M in the bank, according to state campaign finance reports, and he's won election statewide -- albeit as a Dem. Now, he's signed on a top-level campaign team, including John Weaver, John Yob, Mark Salter and Mike Dennehy, all high-profile GOP strategists.
Baker had $1.46M in the bank as of the new year, while Patrick had $634K on hand.
Baker has support from ex-MA Gov. Bill Weld (R), a centrist GOPer who backed Pres. Obama over Sen. John McCain in '08. And though the GOP has a chance to take back the seat, Cahill's team will move to paint Baker as a liberal GOPer who as a top state budget official in the '90s made poor financial decisions over the Big Dig. Baker, Cahill's people will argue, would do more harm to the party than good.
Speaking of McCain, anyone who has followed the WH'08 nominee for any length of time will recognize the names of Cahill's new advisors: Weaver was McCain's top strategist during his '00 bid, though he sat out in '08. Yob was McCain's deputy political director in '08. Dennehy was political director before taking leave from the '08 campaign.
And no one is closer to McCain than Salter. To call Salter McCain's alter-ego is cliche, but when 2 people have co-authored 5 books, including McCain's autobiography, it's an appropriate label.
In NY-23, ex-Speaker Newt Gingrich took heat from conservatives when he backed Assemb. Dede Scozzafava (R) over Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman. Ex-AK Gov. Sarah Palin (R) and MN Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) backed Hoffman, who lost to Rep. Bill Owens (D) after Scozzafava ended her bid and endorsed the Dem. Romney, wisely, stayed out of the race.
But in his home state, he could get trapped. Romney has already endorsed Baker, but he could take heat if conservatives gang up on Baker and rally around Cahill.
"You cannot explain [Baker's] positions on social or fiscal issues in South Carolina or Iowa, and you can't explain the Big Dig in New Hampshire," said one strategist who has been watching the MA GOV race, asked how Romney might approach the contest. "Anybody thinking about running [for the WH'12 nod] will have to stay 1,000 miles away."
Unfortunately for the last GOP governor of the Bay State, staying so far away may not be an option.