Creating jobs high on GOP candidate for governor Chris Doughty’s to-do list
Here is one thing Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Doughty can brag about: He has created more jobs than anyone else running for governor.
In fact, he has created more jobs in his successful business career than have all the candidates seeking to become governor combined.
That includes Democrats Maura Healey, the attorney general, and state Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz.
It also includes fellow Republican Geoff Diehl, 52, who is considered the frontrunner in the two-man battle for the Republican nomination for governor.
One of the four will succeed outgoing Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, who after two terms is not seeking reelection.
Of the four, Doughty, a Wrentham father and grandfather, is the only candidate who has not run for office before. So, he does not talk or act like a politician, but more like an executive who knows how to run an entity like a business.
Asked why he was running, Doughty said, “I want to give back to a country that has blessed me.” He also wants to create jobs in Massachusetts along the way, which is something he knows about.
Doughty, before taking a leave, was president of Capstan Atlantic, a metal gear manufacturing company he began as a start-up. It makes parts for cars, trucks and washing machines, among other things. It now employs 700 skilled workers at two facilities, one of which is in Wrentham. Half of the workers are immigrants.
Doughty, who is fluent in Spanish, having spent two years in Argentina as youthful Mormon missionary, said he is familiar with the views and needs of workers, having worked beside them for years.
He is a graduate of Brigham Young University and received a master’s degree from Harvard Business School. In 2016 the Massachusetts Economic Council awarded Capstan its gold medal for growth and economic expansion.
Doughty said he has turned down several lucrative offers of tax breaks from other states wanting him to relocate.
He said his skill set as a hands-on executive would come in handy if he were governor. “I know how to read and balance a budget,” he said. “I know how to create jobs.”
Before he can do that, however, he must defeat Diehl, a former state representative from Whitman, and then become the Republican nominee.
Diehl has a strong head start. He already has one statewide campaign under his belt. He was defeated for the U.S. Senate in 2018 by Democrat Elizabeth Warren.
The conservative Diehl, in the fractured Massachusetts Republican Party, is supported by Jim Lyons, the party chairman, and has been endorsed by former President Donald Trump.
While that may not be sound like a big deal in progressive, anti-Trump Massachusetts, Diehl’s conservative backing will play a major role in winning the party convention endorsement and the September primary.
Doughty must get 15% of the convention delegate vote to appear on the September primary ballot, which, for a person who has not even been to a convention, is a tall order.
He said he was confident he can do it. And toward that end he has come up with $500,000 of his own money to seed his campaign.
While Doughty discourages being pigeonholed, he is considered a moderate in the fashion of Charlie Baker.
So, the GOP campaign between the two is shaping up as a battle over the future of the Republican Party in Massachusetts.
Will it continue along the moderate/liberal path traveled by former Govs. Bill Weld, Paul Cellucci, Mitt Romney and Charlie Baker — and now Chris Doughty — or will it go the way of conservative Geoff Diehl and Jim Lyons?
“I am not beholden to any political machine,” Doughty said. “I don’t come from that world. I come from the entrepreneurial world, where we take complex problems and solve them.”
The governor is the state’s chief executive officer. Doughty said, “The CEO’s job is creating jobs. We need a to elect a governor who is compatible with creating jobs.”
“I’ll shake things up.”