Convention showcases GOP’S sad state

Making its lurch to the right official, conservative gubernatorial candidate Geoff Diehl received the overwhelming support of delegates at the state Republican Party’s Convention Saturday in Springfield.

Diehl, a former state representative from Whitman endorsed by former President Donald Trump, secured that Republican backing with 849 delegate votes — 71% of those cast.

However, his opponent, Chris Doughty, a businessman from Wrentham, also secured a spot on the primary ballot by receiving 345 votes, which exceeded the 15% requirement.

Obviously feeling at home among his sea of supporters, Diehl touted his experience in the political arena.

“We know what it’s like to run statewide, having run in 2018,” reminded Diehl, seemingly oblivious of that experience’s result.

For Diehl, that U.S. Senate race to which he alluded was a disaster, a 60-36 percentage drubbing by Elizabeth Warren.

And he can expect the same — or worse — when he faces Attorney General Maura Healey, the Democrats’ presumptive governor choice, in the expected general- election matchup.

Diehl might be the rightwing standard bearer of his fringe party, but he hasn’t curried favor with Republican movers and shakers, who prefer the centrist, collegial style artfully executed by outgoing Gov. Charlie Baker.

He opted not to witness the demise of the party he’s managed to keep relevant for the last eight years.

While Diehl easily secured his party’s endorsement, he’s losing the fundraising race.

Doughty has amassed almost three times the amount Diehl’s raised, $774,546 to $296,441, according to the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance.

Both Republicans lag far behind Healey, who’s already raised more than $2 million.

The jockeying for lieutenant governor played out similarly.

Diehl’s running mate, Leah Cole Allen, who previously served as a state representative from Peabody, received 864 votes.

Her opponent, Doughty’s lieutenant governor running mate Kate Campanele, also a former state rep, likewise secured a spot in the September primary, with nearly 30% of the vote.

Eschewing the practical approach taken by Baker, candidates who spoke at the convention laid out a heavily conservative agenda.

It’s no understatement to say that Baker’s departure from the political scene marks the end of an era — a time when Republicans in the corner office wielded a moderating influence over an increasingly liberal Democratic- controlled Legislature.

That’s the leadership model Baker inherited from his GOP gubernatorial predecessors, starting with Bill Weld in 1991.

Interrupted only by Deval Patrick’s two terms (20072015), Republicans Weld, Paul Cellucci, Jane Swift and Mitt Romney forged a collegial, professional relationship with Democratic legislative leaders.

And that system of checks and balances seemed to suit Massachusetts’ voters, who elected GOP governors while stacking the Legislature with Democrats.

But that dynamic ends once Baker leaves office at the end of this year.

“Progressives are afraid of us because we have the courage to stand up for our convictions, and fight against their great reset of our country,” trumpeted Diehl.

That might be a winning platform in West Virginia, Arkansas or Indiana, but in trueblue Massachusetts, it’s a nowin proposition.

It’s difficult to envision Republicans being pushed further to the political margins in this state, but the GOP Convention’s version of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic might do just that.

All that conservative bravado and bluster can’t alter these discouraging numbers: 9% of voters are registered Republicans in this state, only three Republicans are in the 40-member Senate and 28 of the House’s 160 members are Republicans.

If anything, those numbers might get worse.

And we’ll have conservative ideologue Jim Lyons, the former Andover state rep and current chairman of the Republican State Committee, to thank.

In fact, the state’s Democratic Party establishment’s also in his debt.

Lyons has accomplished what the state’s dominant political force couldn’t: ensure that the next governor will be a Democrat.