MassGOP desperately needs new branding

The Massachusetts Republican Party has a branding problem, and I have a modest proposal to solve it.

The MA GOP should change its name to the NIMBY party, as in Not in My Backyard.

Judging by the results of last week’s elections, NIMBY is a more palatable alternative to Democrat insanity for voters than the tarnished old Republican brand.

As an example, let’s look at the results for Question 7, which was a sneaky referendum to get around municipal zoning requirements, by allowing single-family home construction on smaller lots.

Think Trojan horse. It was to be an opening gambit to crack the towns, much as the Democrats have been trying to do with the MBTA Communities Act, to build low-income housing in those nine unfortunate towns.

"Think Trojan horse."

Massachusetts voters aren’t very bright – obviously. But they saw through the scam of Question 7, if only by the narrowest of margins.

The no vote was 1,288,793, to 1,255,840 in favor of yet more free stuff for Gov. Healey’s beloved “neighbors.”

But if you remove the landslide yes vote – or should I say, the “si” vote – in Boston, Cambridge, Somerville and Brookline – the statewide margin would be about 6 percentage points.

The great majority of the state’s 351 communities – about 270 – voted not to demolish their property values. Seems logical, but given the other decisions by the electorate Nov. 3, it makes you wonder why they didn’t vote their own self-interests up and down the line.

This is what I mean about the branding problem for what has been known for more than a century as the Massachusetts Republican Party. Apparently the GOP label has become so toxic locally that many voters can no longer cast a ballot for the candidate less likely to harm themselves, their families and their property.

Here’s the interesting thing about Question 7 – the more affluent the cities and towns were, the less likely they were to cut their own throats.

I don’t say this as a knock on the no voters. Sometimes NIMBY is the best policy, if the alternative is, say, Healey hotels for hordes of Haitian freeloaders.

If I were still legally domiciled in the state, I would have voted no on Question 7. But the reality is, hundreds of thousands of people who couldn’t bring themselves to vote for sane Republican candidates did cast ballots to directly protect their own investments.

My question is, if somehow a no vote on Question 7 could have been promoted as a “Republican” vote, how many of those Beautiful People no voters would have crawled across broken glass to vote yes, just because it’s socially unacceptable to support a Republican-like position?

Hence, the need for a MAGOP rebranding, from Republican to NIMBY (or something else).

Consider Wellesley, the very affluent town where I still live for a few months every year. (I also own property there.) Wellesley couldn’t stand Mike Minogue. It voted for Healey, 8209-3451.

Yet then Wellesley turned around and nixed Question 7, 6622-4890.

Lesson: rich people like to virtue signal, but only up to a point. That point being their own well-being, and their own wallets.

How unpalatable were local Republicans last week? Minogue got absolutely smoked in his own hometown of Hamilton, 2409-1485.

Minogue’s neighbors adore Maura, but they nixed opening the doors to giving her control of their snob zoning. The no votes in Hamilton on Question 7 were 2153, to 1694 yes.

Maybe the state voters weren’t paying a lot of attention, but they did seem to notice what has been happening in the nine municipalities afflicted by the MBTA Communities Act.

Those luckless suburbanites have lost control of their own destiny. It’s not a pretty picture.

The rest of Massachusetts noticed and said NIMBY. Not in My Backyard!

Some of the biggest votes against Question 7 came south of the city, in places like Rehoboth, Rochester and Westport.

But the margins were huge in the ritzy suburbs as well – Weston (63.5 percent no), Carlisle (66 percent) Chatham (58 percent), even uber-woke Lincoln (53.4 percent). Same thing in Lexington, Sherborn and Winchester.

Almost all the “No Kings” towns said, No way, Jose.

One theory is that the voters in the leafy W-type towns figure they have enough money in their trust funds to not have to worry about the usual Democrat insanity like high utility bills, DEI racism and transgenderism.

But when the Democrats start putting public housing in your neighborhoods….

Granted, Question 7 was promoted only as a means to increase construction of “affordable” housing and “revitalizing” middle-class home-ownership. But who was buying that? Obviously not 1,288,793 Massachusetts voters.

The reality is, “affordable” means “low-income.” And “low-income” now means “no-income.” Ultimately, they were talking public housing, i.e., slums. You know, for the “working families,” who mostly don’t work and who aren’t families.

The proponents said they only wanted “higher density” housing, but no one was fooled. Higher density would have meant what the Healey hotels brought on in those benighted towns – more crime, worse schools, locked cases in the drug stores and even more middle-class flight.

People understood this, obviously, but they still couldn’t bring themselves to vote Republican. Thus, the need for the party to change its name.

By the way, you may be wondering, what about the attorney general, Andrea Campbell? She fled Boston for the bucolic South Coast town of Dartmouth.

Oddly, after getting to know her, Campbell’s new neighbors in Dartmouth voted for her by a much smaller percentage than most of the rest of the state – 55 percent.

And on Question 7, Andrea Campbell’s new neighbors said no bleeping way to giving the Democrats any more control over their lives – by a 2-1 margin, 9142 to 4645.

I wonder how Andrea Campbell voted, with her former homies in Mattapan, who may want to join her in the exurbs, or her new Beautiful People neighbors in la-de-da Dartmouth?