Don’t blame me on Nov. 9. I tried to warn you.
Don’t be pointing the finger at me the day after the election. Don’t be whining to me, why didn’t you warn us that in the midst of a Republican wave nationwide, the Massachusetts GOP was about to be wiped off the face of the earth?
Good luck to Geoff Diehl. I really hope he wins. But you know and I know what’s going to happen.
When this campaign is over, you are most likely going to give Geoff the same rating as a candidate what he most dreaded in his prior job as an Uber driver – a one-star review.
Diehl put the Uber back in Gubernatorial.
He got an endorsement Monday night from President Trump, who said this about Diehl:
“He’ll rule your state like an iron fist.”
That’s a line that you’re going to hear over and over again in campaign ads – Maura Healey’s.
He’ll rule your state like an iron fist – just what Republicans and independents are looking for, right?
I still really love Trump, but he couldn’t have scripted a better attack spot for Hold It Healey if he had tried.
So today, Diehl had a press availability. He was introduced by Jim Lyons, the state party chairman, who was wearing sneakers and then proceeded to talk about the scourge of drag queens. Then a reporter asks Geoff, do you want Trump to come to Massachusetts to campaign with you?
“My job right now is to make sure that I get out and meet as many voters as possible….”
Huh? Number one, Trump isn’t wasting his time by coming here, and number two, even Geoff Diehl knows a visit by Trump to Massachusetts would not help his destitute campaign.
And so Geoff reverted to form, going into the old humina-humina, just like the way he first said he thought the 2020 election wasn’t stolen before he said he thought it was stolen. So much for ruling with an “iron fist.”
Oh, and he also said he wants to do a lot of debates with Healey, after hiding in the basement from his Republican opponent all summer. The guy is like a weathervane in a hurricane. He also confused two referendum questions – this year’s anti-illegal alien drivers’ license campaign, and the repeal of the automatic gas tax in 2014.
For that press conference, I’m giving Geoff a review of… one star.
At Gannon’s Tavern in Hyannis on Monday, a listener told me that it was Geoff’s “turn.”
His turn? Anyone can run for office… and lose… and lose… and lose. Later that same night I talked to Althea Garrison, the 81-year-old former state rep and city councilor. She’s lost some 30-plus elections in Boston over the years. Tuesday it was Althea’s “turn” again – she finished third in a three-person fight for an open state rep’s seat.
So now it’s the state GOP’s “turn.”
And wait until Rayla Campbell, the GOP candidate for secretary of state, starts giving interviews and saying the kinds of stuff that she said at the state convention.
Later this week the state GOP’s executive committee is going to have to certify a new candidate for state rep up in Essex County to take the place of the Republican incumbent who quit to take a hack job.
There’s a guy named Samson Racioppi who was seeking write-in votes for the seat Tuesday, and Lyons has said the party will likely go with whoever gets the most write-ins. Racioppi has got a rather checkered past, to put it mildly.
Guess who’s on the executive committee that may have to vote to put this guy on the ballot – Geoff Diehl’s wife and his campaign manager. That’ll be a real good look for the GOP’s outreach campaign – oh, that’s right, there is no outreach campaign.
We also should know something soon about how much the Republican Governors Association is going to put into the Diehl campaign – or not.
Maybe the state GOP can pull out of its swoon. Perhaps Geoff will hit Mega Millions and he’ll have plenty of money for his campaign. Maybe Racioppi will decide not to embarrass the local Republicans.
The only real statewide shot the Republicans have is Anthony Amore, the candidate for auditor. Charlie Baker’s all in for him, which is at least means Amore should have enough money to be competitive. Plus, for some reason Democrats still think Baker did a good job – that’s why they’re called low-info voters.
Amore will be running against state Sen. Diana DiZoglio of Methuen. She’s not that popular among her fellow Democrat hacks, going back to her days as, well, just google both her name and Rep. Mark Cusack’s and draw your own conclusions.
I have a few more thoughts on the primary campaigns. First of all, there were a few bright spots, mostly on the Democrat side.
In Suffolk County, incumbent DA Kevin Hayden prevailed over Ricardo “Defund the Police” Arroyo after the scandal broke about his, shall we say, past.
What was scary was that it was such a “close-run thing,” as the Duke of Wellington described the battle of Waterloo. How far gone is Suffolk County? Arroyo carried every precinct in the city of Chelsea, won by 1200 votes. He even took some of the radical-chic precincts in Jamaica Plain. So much for Believe All Women.
Without that leak, and without City Councilor Frank Baker of Dorchester keeping the story alive by filing demands for the police reports, Boston could be months away from installing the same kind of catastrophic local prosecutors as George Soros’ pals Boudin, Gascon, Krassner, Bragg, Foxx et al.
In the Democrat race to replace Hold It Healey as AG, I know the citizens are screwed one way or the other. But isn’t it rather amusing that the latest blow-in drifter to try to grab an office in Massachusetts – Shannon Liss-Riordan, from Brookline by way of Texas – lost after spending $9 million of her own money.
Shannon, a labor lawyer, was endorsed by fellow carpetbaggers – Michelle Wu and Ayanna Pressley (Chicago) and the fake Indian (Oklahoma). But somehow, Andrea Campbell, of the dreaded Campbell family (check out my book “Hitman” to find out more about her father and uncle) somehow prevailed, rather easily.
Anyway, on to November and I’m already wondering what office Geoff Diehl will be running for next after he loses Nov. 9. Maybe he’ll try to go for state party chairman again, which he once ran for briefly between his pounding by the fake Indian and this latest tilt at windmills.
Again, don’t blame me on Nov. 9. Because I voted for… Ron DeSantis.