By Mark Horan
January 21, 2010
REPUBLICANS AND the national media claim Scott Brown’s victory is most remarkable because it occurred in Massachusetts, the “bluest of states.’’
Brown’s victory was indeed amazing: he was unknown and behind by 30 points about a month ago. But here’s what’s not remarkable: that a fiscally conservative Republican won in Massachusetts.
The national press’s characterization of us as bleeding blue demonstrates the limits of the ubiquitous red state-blue state metaphor. Here are three reasons it misses the mark.
1) If the map showed recent gubernatorial races, we’d be pretty red.
For all our recent blueness on the presidential map, Republicans held the governor’s office for 16 years until the election of Deval Patrick. The popular perception is that this is an overwhelmingly Democratic state, in part because just 12 percent of the voters register as Republican and our congressional delegation was, until now, all Democratic.
This view ignores the fact that Massachusetts, under the right conditions, has a de facto Republican party - the bloc of independents who make up 51 percent of the electorate (more than any other state) and tend to be fiscally conservative. They don’t seem like a Republican party because their social liberalism -- or at least tolerance - puts them at odds with the national party’s evangelical right, with the cowboy effect of the Bush-Cheney regime, and with the shenanigans of a certain Alaskan governor gone rogue.
2) If the map tracked tax revolts, we’d be pretty red. Blame it on Sam Adams or Shays’ Rebellion but this state has a quirky and feisty streak when it comes to anti-tax, anti-incumbent campaigns.
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http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/01/21/deep_blue_state_has_bright_red_history/
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