Like Tom Brady, no thanks for Baker
Governor saying goodbye without saying goodbye
Gov. Charlie Baker is leaving much the same way Tom Brady did.
With no one saying goodbye. With no thunderous applause ringing in his ears. With not so much as a thank you. So much for gratitude.
New England Patriots Super Bowl hero Brady received no warm applause from the Patriots when he left the organization in 2020 after spending two decades winning for the team.
Republican Gov. Baker is leaving the same way. Baker, after eight years as governor, will not even attend the Republican Party convention in May.
Brady, upon leaving the New England Patriots, at least went on for more glory with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Baker’s glory days may be over.
There will be no Baker convention farewell speech, no summing up of his accomplishments, no views of the future and no endorsement of a potential GOP successor. The party will party without him.
This is the party that gave Baker its endorsement for governor three times.
Baker lost his first run for governor in 2010 to Democrat Deval Patrick, but won the next two elections.
The 2022 Republican Party is not your traditional moderate/liberal Republican Party of the past, which Baker epitomized. That Baker-led party is dead after it became indistinguishable from the Democrats, and Baker was labeled a RINO — a Republican In Name Only.
It did not help that Baker was a staunch critic of fellow Republican and former President Donald Trump.
So, Donald Trump Republicans, led by former state Rep. Jim Lyons, the party chairman, wrestled control of the party away from Baker.
The result was that you had a Republican governor unable to control the party he was supposed to be leading.
However, Baker was realistic enough to understand that to get things done as governor he had to work with a heavily Democratcontrolled Legislature. This meant governing as a Democrat.
That made for some awkward Republican politics. While Baker is popular with Democrats, Independents and liberal Republicans, he lost out with Trump supporters who now control the party.
Lyons said that despite Baker, he believed that Trump’s America first message was consistent with the message of the Massachusetts Republican Party.
Had Baker decided to run for a third term, he faced the possibility of losing the convention to Geoff Diehl, the conservative former state representative who ran unsuccessfully against U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren in 2018.
Diehl, who challenged Baker even before Baker chose not to run, is supported by Lyons, who will control the convention, and the majority of conservative convention delegates. Diehl has also been endorsed by Trump.
The other Republican running for governor is businessman Chris Doughty.
Adding a conservative flavor to the convention is the choice of Thomas Homan, the outspoken former acting director of ICE, as a featured speaker.
Homan has been strongly
critical of Biden’s open-borders policy.
Baker, in announcing his absence, said it was important that delegates hear from candidates who are running, and not from those who are not.
He is mistaken. If anything, it is more important for delegates, as well as the public, to hear from a governor who is finally free to speak his mind without worrying about seeking delegate votes.
Eight years ago, outgoing two-term liberal Democrat Gov. Patrick, who was not seeking a third term, wowed the delegates at the state Democrat Party convention with his farewell speech.
In a rousing speech, Patrick had the delegates in a frenzy when he attacked Republican conservatives and “the hard right.”
These are the same conservatives that took the Massachusetts Republican Party away from Baker. They will be at the Republican Party convention.
But Baker won’t. Maybe he should send Patrick in his place.