Charlie Baker is Just About The Last Republican For Whom I Would Vote

Today, Charlie Baker ended months of speculation when he announced that he would not be seeking a third term as Governor of Massachusetts. Lt. Governor Karyn Polito also announced that she would not seek a third term in office either. I am sorry to hear this news because Charlie Baker is just about the last Republican for whom I would vote. If I lived in Wyoming I would vote for Liz Cheney, but there's no guarantee Republicans will nominate her. 

I voted for Baker in his unsuccessful attempt to unseat Deval Patrick in 2010 and again in 2014 when he bested former Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley to be elected Governor. I would also cast a ballot for him again in 2016. Baker was not running for any office that year, but I wrote him in along with Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse my presidential and vice-presidential candidates in the 2016 election when I could not bring myself to vote for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. I'm a lot less disappointed in writing in Baker than I am with writing in Sasse.

I would have voted for Baker's re-election in 2018, but moved to New York a little over a month before the election. I was hoping that he would run so that I could vote for him one last time. But it is not to be. It's not that I agree with everything Baker does. Rather it is what he doesn't do.

First and foremost, Baker steadfastly refused to worship at the altar of Trump. Back in September 2020, Baker was among the first to blast Trump for refusing to commit to a peaceful transfer of power should he have lost the election. Baker also took Congressional Republicans to task on January 5, 2021 for refusing to certify the election stating unequivocally, "President-elect Joe Biden won the election fair and square." This would be an unremarkable statement except for the fact that you would be hard pressed to find many elected Republican officials willing to utter those words. Well, Trump lost the election and we all know what happened on January 6th. 

I also admire Baker for not behaving like other Republican Governors during the ongoing COVID pandemic. I returned to Massachusetts from Georgia the day the Bay State dropped its COVID restrictions. Although Baker did not reimpose statewide mask mandates when cases began to surge over the summer he did not prevent municipalities from implementing their own measures much less threaten to sue or impose other sanctions like Georgia's Brian Kemp, Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida have done. My goodness!!! Baker is actually a Republican who believes in local control.

Massachusetts State Rep. Geoff Diehl is now the frontrunner in the GOP gubernatorial race, but recently re-elected Taunton Mayor Shauna O'Connell is considering joining the race. Unlike Baker, Diehl and O'Connell and anyone else seeking the nomination would have to kiss Trump's ring along with his ass.

The top candidates currently in the Massachusetts Democratic primary are State Senator Sonia Chang-Diaz, former State Senator Benjamin Downing and Harvard professor Danielle Allen. There is a very good chance Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey will throw her hat into the ring now that Baker is out of the picture. Then there's former Boston Mayor and current U.S. Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh who reportedly wants to return to the Bay State to run for Governor.

While I won't vote for the Republican nominee, I won't necessarily vote for the Democratic nominee. I'm not going to vote for someone I don't like. If such a Democrat were nominated they would not need my vote anyway and even if a Republican did win they would have to contend with an overwhelmingly Democratic legislature in both Houses. 

Let me put it another way. If I were still in Georgia I would have no hesitation in voting for Stacey Abrams who today made it official that she will make a second attempt to run for Governor. Abrams needed my vote as Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock did in order to pass the American Rescue Act. This is not the case here in Massachusetts. Still, I am open to voting a reasonable Democrat. With Charlie Baker gone, there's no way in hell I am voting for an anti-vaxxer, insurrectionist supporting Trumpified Republican.