BREAKING: MassGOP Members Ask Ronna McDaniel to Intervene

BREAKING: Half of the membership of the MA state Republican committee just sent a letter to RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel (Mitt Romney’s niece) asking her to intervene in the attempts by minions of state GOP chairman Jim Lyons to sabotage the campaign of Anthony Amore, the party’s endorsed candidate for state auditor and likely the only Republican who has a chance of winning Nov. 6.

Read the letter here. And below that is a column about Anthony Amore by Emma Foley.

Anthony Amore on State Committee Drama

This November, the choice for Massachusetts State Auditor should be clear…and not nearly this dramatic.

From attempts to primary Anthony Amore with three other recruits, to petty selectivity over a photograph, members of the Massachusetts GOP seem to want Democrat candidate Diana DiZoglio to win this November.

“I’ll tell you, the irony is these people are working really hard to elect a Democrat for Auditor,” Amore stated on the Howie Carr Show Wednesday evening. “The people attacking me now—I guess the right wing of the party—were campaigning side-by-side with me in 2018. They donated to my campaign.”

The people Amore speaks of are led by State Committee Chairman Jim Lyons, who portrayed his mission for the party rather explicitly last February:

“It doesn’t really matter if you win. What matters is to get into the fight to teach other people there is another viewpoint.”

That’s nice…in theory. Meanwhile, Democrats have a pretty tight grip around the little guy. So winning races would be pretty swell, too, Jim.

State Auditor candidate Anthony Amore, who has worked in investigatory audits and inspections for over three decades, is under fire from the state Republican party. Why? “It’s a mystery to me,” he claims. “For some reason, the fact that I have Governor Baker’s endorsement and campaigned with him is some sort of major problem and makes me a RINO.”

On September 14, Charlie Baker gave a sole 2022 endorsement for in the state auditor’s race.  Since Baker often earns a Republican-in-Name-Only label himself, the endorsement ruffled the feathers of Republicans in the state committee, resulting in speculative Facebook gossip about potential Amore donations from the lame duck governor.

“I don’t have any information that I’m getting money from any SuperPAC,” Amore told Carr. “It’s suspicion.”

Following his Tuesday campaign event in South Boston, I asked Anthony Amore why Governor Baker made one endorsement—for him—when he could have finished his term as governor relatively uninvolved.

“Governor Baker and Lt. Governor Polito see me as a candidate who doesn’t put ideology first. Doesn’t put political party first. Puts the taxpayer first and thinks in terms of people…Reporting the truth as I find it. And I think that appeals to Gov. Baker because he knows I have the experience to do it.”

Amore’s experience includes seventeen years investigating the Isabella Stewart Gardner heist of 1990, which he claimed has many parallels to the auditor’s office.

“Until you have the paintings in your hand, you haven’t finished. In the auditor’s office, it’s the same sort of investigation, but you don’t have to put paintings in your hand. You have to report to people the problems that you found doing really thorough fact-finding investigations.”

Amore warns an elected DiZoglio would maintain the current dysfunction in the auditor’s office.

“The Auditor’s office is supposed to audit 100% of the agencies. It doesn’t. The current auditor’s only getting to 70% of them. We have no idea what’s going on there.”

One obscure agency where Amore already smells corruption is the Cannabis Control Commission, which has not had a compete audit in its six years of existence.

“That’s what unchecked power looks like. And these people are working really hard to make sure we only have Democrats on Beacon Hill come January.”

The Globe picked up on another petty exchange between MA GOP Chairman Jim Lyons and the state auditor hopeful. When unopposed Amore sent Lyons a photo of himself and the governor for the “Our Candidates” page, the committee refused to post it to the site.

A letter was sent to Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel this evening asking her to “intervene” to halt Chairman Lyons from plotting against Amore’s campaign:

“For months, you have heard about the lengths which Chairman Lyons will go to maintain his hold on power. Now he has gone too far. His personal differences with Gov. Baker are not cause to use party resources to disenfranchise Mr. Amore solely because he is supported by the Governor.”

Thirty-seven members of the Massachusetts State GOP Committee, half of the current seventy-four in office, have signed. This debacle comes less than a week after the “ugly bare-knuckled street brawl,” reports Frank Phillips at The Globe.

“Fifty years of political reporting,” Phillips tweeted, “I have never seen anything close to this…Lyons’ GOP, the reporter’s gift that keeps on giving.”

Lyons’s re-election prospects this January look bleak.

Despite GOP bosses working tirelessly to prevent him from being hired by voters this November, Amore still chose to run as a Republican—a bold move in a state where most voters are registered Independents.

“I’m a Republican because I really believe in limited government,” he explained Tuesday. “I believe in freedom. I believe the government shouldn’t step into areas where it doesn’t belong. I believe we’re nation of laws, and government should do only what the law prescribes.”

He addressed the Massachusetts State Committee: “The irony to call me a ‘Republican in Name Only’ when all their efforts are geared toward electing a Democrat is so rich that it’s befuddling.”