The Elly Report: Candidates Corner

2004 Candidate Survey: An Activist's Response

This is very telling, especially at the end where GOP town committees, etc, weren't supporting candidates due to things like state jobs and "we work well with the Dem incumbent," etc, were hostile to the GOP candidate. This is disgraceful and unacceptable. How do we build the party when our own grassroots in party positions do not support our candidates and are actually hostile to them and defend the Democrat ?! I think Chairmen and Exec board members of those town committees should be removed, and get people in who support our candidates. I know you're not in a position to do anything like this, but I'm voicing my opinion. On the next opportunity where those town committees have Exec board elections, changes should be encouraged and made.

When it comes to your quote below :
"Candidates that commented on this issue were universal in expressing profound disappointment that the MassGOP actively siphoned this resource to support the national campaign in other states."

No one siphoned me. The drive within me to help President Bush is very strong. Yes, I actively volunteered on the President's campaign in New Hampshire on a regular basis. I'm a very loyal Bush/Cheney volunteer. I was very eager to help him and sought out the campaign and got involved in NH. No one was more important to me last year than President George W. Bush. However, even though I was up there most weekends and sometimes during the week after work, I made time locally to help our congressional candidate, Ron Crews. I obtained signatures for him, and went to the campaign kickoff meeting at his home, and did some sign holdings/standouts at summer fairs, and did phone banking. On his announcement day in Worcester, I was the speaker who addressed the crowd in front of City Hall in Worcester and spoke about Ron and introduced him.

There weren't many of us helping President Bush in NH from MA, only about 15 or so, when I remember asking the Bush campaign about that last fall, so there should have been resources down here to help local candidates. Many people just didn't have time with family responsibilities and all to go out of state to help. So, there were resources here, but I sense many did not get involved in any campaigns at all, unfortunately, even locally.

I know there was an effort called Mass-to-Maine to get people to go up there, but I did not get involved in that. I dedicated myself as a NH resource, because I believed it was best for me to concentrate on one state, and the Bush campaign in NH knew me well and knew me as being very reliable knocking on the doors, doing the phone banking, ID'ing voters, registering voters, etc, I was experienced. I've been volunteering in campaigns since 1980. My first was Reagan/Bush when I was a teenager. Also, in the Manchester, NH office, sometimes field reps were out and they needed help manning the office. So, I stood in as a staffer on occasion.