The Boston Globe reports today that GOP registration has fallen by some 15,000 souls since 2002.
Democratic registration is up slightly although by no means enough to offset the commanding position held by independent/unenrolled voters.
On the surface this makes a mockery of Mitt Romney's reform agenda and his vague plans to "grow" the local GOP. All that fuss and bother and yet 15,000 voters have taken a hike from out his aegis.
Where they have gone though is undoubtedly to the independent and unenrolled column which is an ominous trend for state politics.
I think, as the GOP shrinks in size and grass roots support a tendency will be reinforced to seek "extraordinary" candidates from "outside" the political milieu to run for high office come 2006 and 2010.
These types of candidates tend to be naive' self financing amateurs of the Romney template.
As a practical matter we can look forward too ever richer and dumber men being imported and groomed for statewide races because quite literally the GOP has no local farm team to draw from.
If they can come from as far away as Utah, who is to say they can't be flown in from Alaska or Thailand for that matter?
The slow "nationalization" of gubernatorial campaigns therefore fills a need in the Massachusetts GOP for "instant candidates" of a particular type.
However I have to wonder, just as a technical question can a political party that has an aging declining base long perpetuate itself no matter how well funded?
More and more the Massachusetts GOP resembles a shadowy offshore bank...a few little known guys making a lot of decisions backed by a pile of money.
Not much there in terms of mass democratic politics to speak off I'm afraid.
Well what of it?
The game is to glom onto suburban unenrolled voters, preferably women with kids and a huge Menotomy class mortgage to worry about. Drag them and their anxieties to the voting both and you can rule the Kingdom of Heaven.
No comments :
Post a Comment