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President Trump pioneered new ways of campaigning against corrupt Dems like Crooked Hillary and Chief Sitting Bull$hit. But MASSGOP Executive Director Matt St. Hilaire isn't embracing candidates like me who are looking to build on Trump's success in 2016. Indeed, at great benefit to the swamp and as we’ll soon see, at great financial expense to his party, apparently Matt St. Hilaire has decided to snuff out such innovation and if he gets his way, voters nationwide will have front row seats to see what happens when GOP candidates with business-as-usual campaign tactics try to take on Lyin' Liz Warren and her thus-far $15 million war chest in the political bogs of Massachusetts. And with national politics looming ahead for 2020, the outcome of this year’s Massachusetts Senate race will reach far beyond New England if Elizabeth Warren emerges unscathed.
Now to many actual Republicans in Massachusetts (there are over 1 million Trump voters here), the shenanigans which I am about to describe are nothing new, although at first many expect to see them employed on the other side, by the Dems. As many lament, one of the very un-GOP-like things which the state GOP has done here is to establish a Kennedy-style pay-to-play system. Even the festering fungal rag known as the Boston Globe, which usually “comforts the comfortable and afflicts the afflicted,” as local conservative voice Howie Carr accurately quipped, noticed and penned this article here 4 years ago about the exorbitant fees for which our state GOP committee shakes down its dwindling candidate pool as compared to other states which border Massachusetts and even to the Dems who don't charge their political hopefuls to speak.
As detailed by the Boston Rag as well as by court filings and other documents provided to FreeMartyG, any Republican who wishes to run for certain state-wide offices here has to pony up thousands in order to speak at the State GOP convention, where they then must receive the nomination of at least 15% of the assembled party delegates in order to appear on the primary ballot. For example, speaking as a GOP gubernatorial candidate in 2014 cost $25k. And that's on top of collecting 10,000 signatures from registered voters to satisfy state requirements, which is usually done at a price tag of around $1.50-$2.00 each, paid to companies who actually specialize in conducting such operations.
Now, the State GOP leadership – if you can get them to return your calls – would probably tell you that putting on the convention is expensive and that unlike the Dems, the GOP is already financially tapped. However, I imagine that many readers who are familiar with the Massachusetts GOP are rolling their eyes, as I am as well, since they are probably tired of hearing such excuses from the party leadership in its attempts to justify much of its other money grubbing and underhanded tactics.
For example, as you can read about here, in 2014, the Massachusetts GOP had to pay out a $240,000 civil award to a Gubernatorial candidate for trying to edge him out of competition by illegally spending party money to back a candidate preferred by party leadership in a contested primary race. And the party is now facing similar allegations of misappropriating resources this year in order to unfairly and illegally help the same now-incumbent governor, Charlie Baker, edge out a different competitor. Coincidentally, many Republicans in New England have a nickname for Baker, who they call “Tall Deval,” after his predecessor, a Democrat named Deval Patrick.
Baker also routinely hates on President Trump and I’ve contacted him before to advocate for tortured veterans in our state’s prisons, only to be ignored. But weeks later when Aaron Hernandez committed suicide in his cell, suddenly Baker couldn’t wait to tell reporters, “But obviously, one is too many…”
But I digress.
Some others who may not be aware of where all this money actually seems to be going view these barriers to entry as viability tests. Still others view these barriers to entry as liability tests within the herd. The theory seems to be that in order for a Republican to win in Massachusetts, they must be able to raise a ton of money early in the race before candidates have had many opportunities to speak publicly and before most donors are ready to commit to candidates they haven't yet been able to get to know. To me, that seems like putting the cart before the horse as well as like an invalid test, given the lessons of Make America Great Again in 2016. Instead, it seems more like a corrupt excuse for a political shakedown.
Further, even with her $15+ million, Lyin' Liz Warren is no liberal lion. She's just liberal and she's just lyin'. And innovative campaign tactics could render her financial advantage largely obsolete, just like they did to Crooked Hillary, who she closely resembles.
Additionally, much of this behavior seems to call into question the honesty of the State GOP leadership's various potential explanations for its apparent greed. For example, at the 2014 state GOP convention, documents provided to FreeMartyG indicate that there were well-founded allegations of irregularities counting votes from delegates as well as even intimidation of those who wanted to nominate cash-strapped candidates who hadn't sufficiently lined the State GOP's coffers.
And then there's also the age-old tactic which my wife Dana and I just experienced of the State GOP leadership setting a registration deadline for its convention without publicly detailing the exact requirements or allowing people to sign up on its website and then not responding to our inquiries until after that deadline had passed. Ahead of the April 13th deadline to sign up to speak at the State GOP convention this Saturday, Dana left multiple voicemails for state GOP chairman Matt St. Hilaire. But when she finally got ahold of him – yesterday – he told us that it was too late to register, even though it was he who dropped the ball and according to state party Convention Rules he has the discretion to wave the deadline.
All of this, I'm sure, makes Lyin' Liz Warren very happy and very safe in the upcoming campaign. And it ma it makkesit makes me wonder with whom she has been smoking her peace pipe.
Marty Gottesfeld is an Obama-era political prisoner and Republican Senate candidate against incumbent Elizabeth Warren. You can donate to his legal defense fund at FreeMartyG.com or to his political campaign at VoteMartyG.com.
