MassGOP Leftists Strike Back
FROM THE PRINTED MARCH 1, 2023 EDITION OF THE BOSTON BROADSIDE
The Most Vicious Public Campaign of Personal Destruction Against One Individual
That I’ve Ever Seen in Nearly 30 Years of Republican Activism
by Brian Camenker
MassResistance.org
SPECIAL COMMENTARY
On January 31, the Massachusetts Republican State Committee voted 37-34 to replace conservative Party Chairman Jim Lyons with the RINO lobbyist Amy Carnevale. The intent was to transform the MassGOP back to the “moderate” (and “swampy”) Baker/Romney days – and purge its recently acquired mainstream Republican principles that embarrass the GOP establishment.
This vote didn’t happen in a vacuum. It followed the most vicious public campaign of personal destruction against one individual that I’ve ever seen in nearly 30 years of Republican activism. Moreover, these attacks against Lyons were well-organized and clearly well-financed.
The RINO move to remove Jim started in June 2021, when a Catholic state committeewoman made a comment in an email critical of homosexual relationships. There were calls for Jim to demand she resign for being “homophobic,” but Jim insisted she had free speech in the matter.
This led to a huge newspaper and TV media firestorm calling for Jim’s resignation, which, according to reports Carnevale helped organize. This also included a public letter from the Mass. GOP House (RINO) delegation demanding Jim’s ouster. But Jim held his ground.
But that was just the beginning. A number of phony GOP “organizations” suddenly appeared, regularly flooding activists’ email boxes with hateful anti-Lyons screeds.
In an effort to disrupt Lyons’ ability to run the GOP, a group of RINO State Committee members refused to attend meetings for nearly a year in order to deny a quorum. According to reports, the RINO GOP treasurer even temporarily disabled the MassGOP’s bank account to keep Lyons from paying bills on time.
Then the real hammering came. Day after day in the weeks leading up to the January vote, the Boston newspapers published countless articles brutally bashing Lyons, portraying him as a dangerous incompetent and blaming him personally for every real or imagined GOP problem. This was obviously the work of a professional PR operation.
Also bashing Jim was talk-show host and Herald columnist Howie Carr. Carr’s unending, over-the-top, often infantile attacks – on his show, in his columns, and on social media – were incredibly bizarre. It seemed like for months Lyons was the only thing Carr could think about. It’s widely believed that large amounts of RINO advertising money had something to do with this, plus the fact that Howie has moved to Florida, so Massachusetts politics is now just entertainment to him.
It was all so disingenuous. They blamed Jim for the GOP’s drop in revenue. Truth: The Baker people told major GOP donors not to donate. They blamed Jim for Republicans not getting elected. Truth: The recent legalization of mail-in voting and other fraud-laden schemes are making GOP wins nearly impossible. They blamed Jim for the drop in registered Republicans. Truth: Because of open primaries, the Democrats are also losing numbers. And on and on.
The establishment’s hatred against Lyons – who was publicly and unabashedly pro-life and pro-family – was chilling. According to published reports, RINO donor Chris Egan even offered to pay all the GOP’s bills if the State Committee voted Lyons out.
This repugnant RINO conduct is certainly not new. In 2020 Shawn Dooley won his State Committee seat by sending out a mailing against conservative incumbent Earl Sholley falsely accusing him of being a convicted felon and ‘Swamp Creature’ (aka RINO). Others sent out mailings saying they were “pro-Trump” when they were actually never-Trumpers.
With all of that, under normal circumstances Jim still would have probably won. Unfortunately, at least three pro-Lyons State Committee members had recently moved out of their districts and were ineligible to vote. And one anti-Lyons member had moved to Tennessee, but got a corrupt Massachusetts judge to force the State Committee to allow her to vote against Lyons.
What will the new MassGOP look like?
Since the election, Amy Carnevale has not surprisingly become a darling of the liberal media. She has done interviews with WBUR, CBS TV Boston, and others outlining the new direction of the MassGOP.
Mainstream Republican issues, particularly “social issues” like abortion and Drag Queens in schools, are out the door. It’s back to focusing on power and money. And that happens, Carnevale believes, by running people like Weld, Cellucci, Romney, and Baker – who were all basically Democrats, and staffed their administrations with liberals. She wants to focus on “fiscal issues” (which is a challenge without a well-defined moral compass as a guide).
She also wants to grow the party by bringing in people of all political beliefs – the RINO “big-tent” idea. So if someone who is pro-illegal immigration and pro-taxes wants to be a Republican activist, it’s not a problem.
We all know that’s the road to oblivion – becoming just an ineffective junior varsity version of the Democrats. The real way to grow the party is to sell the public on Republican values and principles, which are far superior to those of the Democrats. That’s what Jim wanted to do.
Where do WE go from here?
There’s talk about running conservative State Committee candidates and taking the party back in two years. It’s a challenge. As we know, the wealthy RINO establishment is obsessed with keeping our side out of power. They love our political work ethic but they can’t stand our Republican values.
In my opinion, there should be a special place in hell for those State Committee members who voted to do this to the MassGOP. None of them said even a peep in disagreement: they all cooperated and collaborated with this truly repulsive attack on Jim Lyons and, by extension, every other conservative GOP activist. The Broadside is publishing the list. Put it up on your wall. At the very least, these turncoats should be excluded from everything that good people are involved with. ♦
