Adrian Walker gave Republicans of the Charlie Baker vein something to consider this week by suggesting the Governor leave the party of Donald Trump.
Walker points out that Baker is fast becoming a man without a party. He’s in the mold of Frank Sargent, but his party is all Trump.
Comparing Baker to those at the helm of the state GOP, the Governor cuts a lonely figure. Walker suggests he leave it altogether.
That will take courage, but it’s the courage to lose because that is the likely result of Charlie Baker, Independent, running in 2022.
In many ways, Republicans who win the Governorship are always a Chief Executive without a party. There are not enough Republicans in the Legislature to make any difference. If you’re a Republican Governor interested in governing, you work with Democrats. It infuriates the base, but their power is limited to party conventions, party primaries, twitter, and local town meetings, all places where turnout and attention are both relatively low.
No nationally recognized Republicans have left the party during the Trump era. This speaks to the direction of the party, the power of the base, and the institutionalization of the party and big money groups in electoral contests. Bill Weld actually returned to the party to tilt at Trumpian windmills.
If Charlie Baker were to leave the party, he’d lose the support of the party apparatus in terms of voter turnout and fundraising. He’d leave money from the Republican Governor’s Association on the table. Some big outside funders, facing pressure from the national party, will pull support.
Going into a general election as an independent, the newly freed Baker will face a Republican, likely in the long tradition of Avi Nelson-Ray Shamie-Geoff Diehl. They can rally the base but cannot win a statewide race. This will effectively peel off enough votes to deny Baker a third term. How quickly can you say Governor Maura Healey?
Baker made inroads in trying to transform the party into an organizational apparatus in his mold, but he’s simply no match for Donald Trump. The President won 49% of the primary vote here in 2016 and just under 33% of the general election vote.
The most popular Republican in the country, Baker still lost 36% of the party’s primary vote in 2018 to the radical Scott Lively.
Those are Trump voters who tolerate Baker in a general election but will happily work to see him lose if he’s in a general election against a kindred spirit.
To be sure, Walker is also making a moral case for Baker to leave. There may be a similar argument to stay, to openly fight to preserve a conservative party of pragmatism, tradition, and limited government. There’s a precedent: Sargent worked around the party base to achieve his political and policy goals. But that was a long time ago.
Today’s hard reality is there are not enough members of the Governor’s party who will take on that fight with him. That leaves one of the most popular Governors in the country mostly powerless to reshape his party, but also unable to win without it.
I am a lifelong Dem but do like 2019 Charlie Baker. I think he has evolved and woken up over Baker 1.0, although still say he falls way short in climate science. (although he is no longer a denier).
Don’t you think Charlie would be .a Democrat in many red states.? That is his only chance of winning again to run as a (D).
Should Charlie Baker stop fund raising for Trump’s re-election though? How much has Baker raised this cycle for Trump’s re-election?
Although he liked Trump’s tax cut bill he hasn’t spoken for or against the federal judges he and McConnell have put on the bench or the other Trump era policy, nor has he spoken out against Trump’s willful effort to dump more carbon into the atmosphere.
Baker analogizes party membership with his two parents. I think that’s a dodge. He’s GOP through and through. Helping to finance Trump’s re-election is his own betrayal to the kind of politics he says he wants.