Poll: Romney Losing Massachusetts — Not Even Close

Comments (28)

james wrote on September 11, 2007 10:20 AM:

New York is a "blue" state, right? How's Rudy doing in the general matchups?

CalD wrote on September 11, 2007 10:20 AM:

Massachusetts likes to elect the occasional Republican governor just to balance their entrenched, machine-dominated Democratic legislature a little. And the woman who ran against Romney ran a really nasty campaign that turned a lot of people off in the end. But I can't think of the last time a Republican carried the state in a presidential election. It wouldn't surprise me if it's never happened.

scott bates wrote on September 11, 2007 10:33 AM:

Come on. Utah is his real home state. How is he doing there?

Lou wrote on September 11, 2007 10:35 AM:

Ronald Reagan carried Massachusetts twice. That's the last time a Republican did so.

Also, the woman who ran against Romney did not run a nasty campaign that turned people off. Romney ran a nasty campaign against her -- very ugly stuff about her husband, who's a lobbyist, and her years serving in state politics. Romney was absolutely brutal, actually.

With that said, I would be interested to know if anyone has ever been elected president who lost his own home state. This is a worthwhile inquiry because Romney, if nominated, is certain to lose Massachusetts and likely to lose Michigan. Those are the two states he has the greatest claim on as "home."

za wrote on September 11, 2007 10:35 AM:

More interestingly, how on earth did a "staunch conservative" get elected as Governor in such a "very blue state"?

Did he lie to the voters?

Is he really a liberal?

What's up with that, Kevin?

Charley on the MTA wrote on September 11, 2007 10:37 AM:

Ronald Reagan, 1980 and 1984.

Anyway, yes, familiarity does indeed breed contempt with Romney. And I guess it's mutual. Of course, he began running against Massachusetts *while he was still governor.* Nice fella.

Charley on the MTA wrote on September 11, 2007 10:42 AM:

"Did he lie to the voters?"

Funny you should ask! See here, and here for more info about this (Bain) capital fellow.

mojo wrote on September 11, 2007 10:56 AM:

Mitt gave a nice sales pitch to MA voters in '02, then after 2 years devoted himself full time to carrying water for GW Bush, and traveling around the world at MA taxpayers expense. He took his MA State Police contingent and staff to places like China, on 'fact finding' missions.

He had zero chance of winning a second term in MA so he decided to jump before he was pushed. We don't call him 'One, done & run' Mitt for nothing.

If nominated by the GOP, Mitt will lose MA to ANY of the top Dems. It won't even be close.

Pete wrote on September 11, 2007 11:09 AM:

With that said, I would be interested to know if anyone has ever been elected president who lost his own home state.

Yes. Al Gore in 2000.

maria O'Meara wrote on September 11, 2007 11:18 AM:

How did Romney get elected? For years, the Dems in Massachusetts fielded weak candidates. It began with the incredibly acerbic BU president John Silber who ran against the affable William Weld and lost. Heck, even I voted for Weld because Silber was so repugnant. And that was the beginning! We had Scott Harsharger, one of the lamest campaigners I have ever seen in my life. Shannon O'Brien ran against Romney. She came off as an entrenched insider, had problems raising money and like Harsharger, she was an unexciting candidate who failed to motivate voters. Personally I liked both Deval Patrick and Tom O'Reilly in the last election.

Baba OCambridge wrote on September 11, 2007 11:18 AM:

Romney was a do nothing governor who defeated Shannon O'Brien (Dem) who had served as State Treasurer and in the legislature. She also hails from a well connected Democratic politcal family. Romney took over from the disasterous Acting Gov Jane Swift(Rep). Actually Jane Swift was thrown to the wolves by the Republican leadership of the state. She replaced Paul Cellucci who became Ambassador to Canada. Cellucci got the job when Bill Weld was appointed by Bill Clinton to me ambassador to Mexico. All are Republicans --they were all in charge during the construction of the Big Dig project. That is the project where the ceiling collapsed and killed a woman, that has thousands of leaks and cost bilions. Not all of this the fault of the four Republican governors who appointed the people who were supposed to oversee the the project but you can see why lots of us in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts have little more then disdain for this crew.

smasher wrote on September 11, 2007 11:38 AM:

Mitt Romney was a carpetbagger from the beginning. He saw an opportunity in MA, and took it.

He was essentially stepping in for Jane Swift, perhaps the dumbest governor we've ever had. (Swift took over from Paul Cellucci, who resigned as MA governor to take a plum ambassador's post.)

Swift was a VERY weak GOP candidate for governor, and she didn't even bother to run once Mitt stepped into the picture. Mitt was running on his record with the Salt Lake City Olympics. I can't imagine that anybody expected him to stay more than one term. His post as governor was always seen as a pretty blatant springboard for bigger and better things--something which became painfully obvious during the second half of his term, when he started veering hard right for some GOP street cred. And he always placed his own ambitions above the needs of his constituents and of his party.

(The way he stomped all over the GOP lieutenant governor--and candidate to replace him--when a ceiling tile collapsed in one of the Big Dig tunnels, killing a motorist, was a naked attempt to look "in control" and quash a potential political liability for his presidential run. In doing so, he basically handed the governorship to the Democrats. Which is fine.)

(And another thing: when he was running for governor, he promised to rebuild the GOP in the state from the ground up--to recruit and field strong local candidates, to rebuild the ground operation. Didn't happen. Instead, the party shrunk and shrunk and shrunk. Perhaps he'll take his party organizational skills national. We can only hope....)

BTW, the myth of the Massachusetts liberal is just that: a myth. We've had a long run of (mostly moderate) GOP governors, starting most recently with Bill Weld in 1991. Most of them were running against the Democratically-run (machine-run) state legislature. But travel the state a bit--to Belmont, to Weston, to Revere, to Chelsea, to Quincy, to parts of central Massachusetts. It's something, but it ain't liberal.

Y.G. Bluig wrote on September 11, 2007 11:43 AM:

"Shannon O'Brien ran against Romney. She came off as an entrenched insider, had problems raising money and like Harsharger, she was an unexciting candidate who failed to motivate voters. "

Her biggest problem was that she was simply unlikable, while Romney the unknown was posing shirtless in People's Most Beautiful issue.
The Dems made a monumental mistake that year nominating Shannon, the insider's insider, instead Robert Reich, who would have been a phenominal gov.

Romney?
All you need to know is in this web address:

http://romneyisafraud.blogspot.com/

Steve wrote on September 11, 2007 11:45 AM:

Lou: Woodrow Wilson lost New Jersey in his 1916 re-election campaign against Charles Evans Hughes.

RG wrote on September 11, 2007 12:13 PM:

Romney was a putz as a Governor. He's a documented liar, gay-basher, religious nut-bag and a crony capitalist. Sounds like a perfect GOP candidate.

ottercliff wrote on September 11, 2007 12:30 PM:

Romney's problems with Massachusetts voters are the same set of problems that he will have with all US voters should he be elected President:

1. His set of "beliefs" consist of whatever is politically expedient to state at the moment.

2. If it convenient for him to trash any particular group, even one he had supported in the past, he will do so without a second thought.

3. Once elected, he will immediately lose interest in the office and begin planning his next conquest.

Chesire111 wrote on September 11, 2007 12:42 PM:

Romney's true character was revealed in his race for the Corner Office. The man wasn't even a legal resident of the commonwealth (registered to vote and paid taxes in UT) and was constitutionally ineligible to run, when he slipped a shiv into Governor Swift. As soon as the GOP abandoned Swift to rally round Mitt, they commenced a whining campaign about how unfair it would be for the Dems to insist that we abide by the provisions of our state constitution and contest his place on the ballot. Once cleared to run by our imaginative, if craven Supreme Judicial Court, he ran a sleazy campaign against Shannon O'Brien, the highlight of which was Idiot Mitt taking his shirt off in a campaign ad apparently intended to appeal to the libidinous female demographic.

As the saying goes, "sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug," those of us unlucky enough to reside in the Bay State through the Romney years were the incontinent dog strapped to the roof.

I don’t' think it comes as a surprise to anyone 'round here that Romney would lose MA in the general election. In point of fact, given the bad blood between him and the state GOP when he left office, I doubt he will carry the commonwealth in the Republican primary.

Phil wrote on September 11, 2007 12:43 PM:

also, I believe Nixon lost California when he beat Hubert Humphrey.

Not the senator wrote on September 11, 2007 12:47 PM:

I've been saying for months, the more you know Romney, the more you loathe him and if he had run for a 2nd term he would have been blown out of office.

America, don't be a sucker for a slick presentation like we were, don't give him the 1st term, you'll live to regret it.

Chesire111 wrote on September 11, 2007 12:48 PM:

Silber wasn't so bad - he was the straight-talking, non-pandering candidate that voters always claim they want but never get. Given the choice, though, the voters (as usual) preferred the smoke Weld blew up their backsides to the honest, if unpleasant truths Silber told us to our faces - besides, Silber made the cardinal mistake of being impatient with Natalie Jacobson, the matronly airhead/co-anchor on Ch 5 news and the voters never forgave him for that.

Personally, I thought the high point of that campaign was when Silber referred to Weld as a "Carrot-headed WASP." He caught hell for it, but he was right.

Eric Kleefeld wrote on September 11, 2007 1:16 PM:

Nixon won California in 1968 but was actually a legal resident of New York at the time, and was listed as such in the Electoral College votes. And since Humphrey won New York, this makes Nixon the last man to win a presidential election while losing his home state.

CalD wrote on September 11, 2007 1:57 PM:

"...this makes Nixon the last man to win a presidential election while losing his home state."

Well, unless you count Al Gore.

dcs wrote on September 11, 2007 2:00 PM:

It's been pretty well articulated already, but the 2002 Democratic primary for Mass. governor split progressives and their interest groups among three decent candidates. This allowed Shannon to take a plurality with moderate to conservative democratic primary voters.

From http://www.sec.state.ma.us/ELE/eleres/demprim02.pdf

SHANNON P. OBRIEN - 243,039
ROBERT B. REICH - 185,315
THOMAS F. BIRMINGHAM - 179,703
WARREN E. TOLMAN - 132,157
STEVEN GROSSMAN - 5,976
(Grossman had left the race)

Reich, Birmingham, and Tolman all ran to the left of O'Brien, but her moderate bloc was bigger than any of their individual progressive blocs. I spent a lot of time volunteering for Reich and the field was always very crowded. O'Brien was the least appealing candidate to core progressives in unions, academia, and activists in general. By the general election, there weren't enough ground troops behind her to beat Romney.

RobNYC wrote on September 11, 2007 2:01 PM:

Notice how his spokesman uses the word "Democrat voter registration."

cd wrote on September 11, 2007 4:24 PM:

Romney's election (under 50%) and redundancy, starting in October 2004, has everything to do with two words: Tom Finneran.

Romney spent two years running against and trying to force Finneran out; Shannon O'Brien was a unwitting colateral casualty. The election mandate- about taxes and corruption- was about getting Finneran out. When Finneran resigned as Speaker and from the legislature in September 2004 the game was up.

Romney's approval rating went from the 50s in mid-2004 to 32-35% right after that. His whole 2004 anti-Finneran state legislature campaign blew up six weeks before the election. All his newly recruited and well financed Republican challengers lost, Democrats even took out a couple of incumbent Republicans and open Republican-held seats.

Massachusetts has generally been run by its state legislature; I'm not too sure why the state really bothers to have a governor office, even :-). (For all the parliamentary look, it runs a lot like a town hall meeting.) The November 2004 state elections really took the power out of Romney's hands, totally annulled any mandate from the 2002 election, and put it all back in the legislature leaders' hands. (Democrats in the state House reunited with Finneran's departure, and departure of most of his cronies.) IOW, state Senate majority leader Bob Travaglini became the most powerful man in the state government after that election and actually ran the show for the other two years of Romney's term.

Romney figured out the score and his near-complete loss of power very quickly. He went on vacation and to setting up his Presidential run in December 2004 and is bitter at the score. He knows perfectly well that Massachusetts voters used him almost purely to take out a powerful 'centrist' corrupted conservative Democrat. He got used to fix a problem in the ruling party in the state and then disposed of like a Kleenex.

For all the delusions he had of power and the way he wielded it, none of his various other "accomplishments" remain or matter by comparison. The budget fix of 2003 (which wasn't much his to claim) doesn't matter, nor the healthcare initiative (not his either) nor his grandstanding about the Big Dig. He knows he will be tallied on the wrong side of history for his behavior on gay marriage legalization and enforcing the '1913 law'- and that paradoxically these suppression efforts did a lot to help it survive, and that he'll be pilloried for it all until the end of his career by both ends of the social policy spectrum.

Couldn't happen to a nicer careerist. Makes him bitter, though.

George wrote on September 11, 2007 4:58 PM:

I hope America is smart enough not to make this pandering, yapping bobble-head its next President! Romney is the worst America's political system has to offer and I think part of the reason he's been so bitter towards MA is because he knows if he ever ran for office in this state again, he couldn't be elected dog-catcher! Besides ushering in the end of useless payroll patriots like Tom Finneran--who was way more conservative than Romney could ever dream of being--and Billy 'The Corrupt Midget' Bulger, there wasn't anything positive about this empty suit's reign in the Commonwealth...except maybe making everyone think twice again before electing a Republican to anything!

illlich wrote on September 11, 2007 5:38 PM:

Oh Please. . . if you lived here in MA. you'd have seen this coming. For all the talking points he has about "turning MA. around" most of us can't think of one solid thing he did except argue with the Turnpike Authority for 4 years (maybe correctly), double state fees like marriage and driver's licenses (but ohhhh, NEVER did he "raise taxes"), oppose stem cell research, and try to bring back the death penalty. True, the budget went from being deficit to surplus under his watch, but I wonder how much of that was his doing (budget cuts and raising state fees), and how much was the increased capital gains tax enacted before he took office.
He wasn't a horrible governor, but neither was he anything to write home about. If I remember correctly, he wasn't even a legal resident of MA. when he filed to run for governor. I think most of us in MA. tend to think of him as a photogenic carpetbagger who saw an opportunity.

bob wrote on September 11, 2007 6:16 PM:

Can I just note how much local blogs like Blue Mass Group rock for putting together oodles and oodles of info on topics like how big of a loser Mitt Romney is?

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