LATE IN 1990, Bill Weld acknowledged that he hadn't really beaten John Silber in that year's race for governor. "I didn't win that campaign," Weld told me. "Silber lost it." It was true. The political advantages were with Silber in 1990, but he blundered and wound up snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Paul Cellucci, it has often been remarked, is no Bill Weld, and he proved it again in his graceless press conference last Wednesday. One day earlier, he'd bested Scott Harshbarger with roughly the same bare majority as Weld's in 1990 — 51 percent — and for roughly the same reason: The Democrat ran a poor campaign and blew what could have been a winning hand. For his squeaker of a win, Cellucci should have expressed self-deprecating gratitude. Instead he complained that he was robbed of a landslide.
![]() Massachusetts Governor Paul Cellucci celebrates at an election night rally in Boston. |
Yes, the national GOP squandered what should have been a triumphant political season — not by overstressing the scandalous behavior of the president (exit polls showed that for most voters Clinton simply wasn't an issue), but by understressing the conservative agenda of shrinking government and cutting taxes. And yes, Republican candidates were massacred in Massachusetts on Nov. 3. But the one has no connection to the other.
What took place nationwide on Election Day was not a backlash against Republicans, it was the absence of a backlash against Democrats. But even when there is an anti-Democrat tide — as in 1994, when Democrats were swept away in Congress and the statehouses and Republican power surged to levels not seen in generations — what happens in Massachusetts? Answer: nothing. In 1994, the state GOP made no gains. It couldn't beat Ted Kennedy or a single Democratic congressman, couldn't win any statewide office it didn't already hold, and couldn't achieve even a modest pickup in the Legislature.
If Bay State Republicans fail to advance even in a year of massive GOP victories, why would anyone expect them to do well in a year that is merely so-so?
Massachusetts voters did not punish Republicans last week because of the inept leadership of Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott. They punished them because of the inept leadership of Cellucci and Weld.
For eight years, the two Republican governors have made it their business to efface every difference between the two major parties. Big government? Under Weld-Cellucci, the state's tentacles reach deeper into the lives of private citizens than ever before. High spending? Under Weld-Cellucci, the budget has grown by nearly $1 billion a year. Social liberalism? From gun control to gay "awareness," Weld-Cellucci have pushed state government even further to the cultural left than it was under Michael Dukakis.
Why bother to vote Republican if what you end up with walks, talks, and quacks like a Democrat?
Even on the issues that Weld-Cellucci cited as proof of their conservative bona fides, they took pains not to seem too principled.
They claimed to be tax-cutters, but Weld-Cellucci actually raised income taxes by $800 million: They twice expanded the so-called "stabilization fund," siphoning off money that would otherwise have been returned to the taxpayers.
They claimed to be ardent privatizers, but privatization was abandoned in favor of buying off state employees. At the MBTA, the Turnpike Authority, and Logan Airport, Cellucci bribed the transit unions with contracts hiking salaries by as much as 20 percent over five years.
They claimed to favor capital punishment, but they appointed two capital-punishment opponents to the Supreme Judicial Court.
On the question of how Republicans can win elections, there are two schools of thought. One holds that Republicans are most likely to succeed when they sharply distinguish themselves from Democrats and battle hard for their principles. The other holds that Republicans should mute their ideological distinctions and craft a "moderate" image.
Weld and Cellucci are disciples of the second school. For the past eight years, they bent over backward to placate the State House powers that be. They flattered, schmoozed, and deferred to the Legislature's Democrats. They backed away from fights. They kept the Republican State Committee ineffectual. They gave patronage jobs to Democrats, and recruited few Republicans to challenge incumbents. They looked for ways to needle their own party (e.g., Weld vs. the prolifers) and to befriend high-ranking Democrats (e.g., Cellucci hailing Hillary Clinton in Lowell).
The result is a shattered and demoralized Republican Party. Weld and Cellucci conveyed the message that the GOP had nothing much to offer, and the electorate voted accordingly. Republicans were trounced. The Legislature will have its largest Democratic majority in memory. Cellucci eked out a win, but GOP candidates who made their name as Weld-Cellucci appointees — Jeffrey Locke, Jack Flood, Michael Duffy, Brad Bailey, Dale Jenkins — were blown away.
Like Weld, Cellucci has stood for very little. Very little is what he ended up with: a governorship with no real power. There's a lesson in this. But judging from his remarks last week, Cellucci hasn't learned it.
(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe).
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