MASS Elects both Governor and Lt Gov: Caveat: They are both openly gay
WORCESTER — Massachusetts Republicans gave an overwhelming endorsement to gubernatorial candidate Charles D. Baker at their state convention yesterday, giving him a massive margin that forces GOP rival Christy Mihos out of the race and frees him from what could have been a bitterly divisive primary battle.
In an impressive display of support among party leaders and activists, Baker won 89 percent of the delegate votes, while Mihos got 11 percent, falling well short of the 15 percent threshold needed to qualify for the September primary ballot. GOP leaders said Baker’s margin was the biggest in recent convention history.
Baker, who has been the party establishment’s favored candidate to retake the governor’s of fice, claimed victory late in the afternoon surrounded by his parents, wife, and children, as red, white, and blue confetti and balloons rained on the crowd inside the DCU Center.
“We have a job to do and that job starts today,’’ Baker told cheering delegates. “It’s time to take our state back from the Beacon Hill insiders, the status quo-ers and nonreformers, and give the people of Massachusetts the government they deserve — affordable, accountable, and responsive.’’
With the convention endorsement and the collapse of Mihos’s candidacy, Baker has cleared a major hurdle and is now free to focus on the general election race against Governor Deval Patrick and state Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill, a former Democrat running as an independent.
Baker, a 53-year-old former health insurance executive and Cabinet official in the Weld and Cellucci administrations, said his campaign themes of “jobs, taxes, and spending’’ appealed to the Republican delegates, and he predicted they will fuel a GOP victory in November.
“It’s a message that clearly resonated with the crowd,’’ Baker told reporters after the vote, as his aides boasted of their huge “wipeout’’ of Mihos.
The battle over the gubernatorial endorsement capped a day that Republicans believe will launch a strong push toward November by statewide and legislative candidates, one they hope ends with the party regaining influence on Beacon Hill after years of decline. The GOP leadership is looking to capitalize on the voter unrest and anger that helped propel Scott Brown to victory in January’s Senate race
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