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 elieve
it or not, there are a few conservatives living in Massachusetts.
But recent events suggest the state's flailing
Republican
party may be losing them — to the Libertarians.
Libertarian Carla Howell stunned many when she garnered more than
12 percent of the vote in a U.S. Senate race last November, trailing
far behind Ted Kennedy but nearly beating beleaguered Republican
candidate Jack E. Robinson. With 308,860 votes, Howell's showing
instantly turned her into the state Libertarian party's standard-bearer
and even has prompted talk of her running for governor in 2002.
She says she's received hundreds of e-mails urging her to run.
"She speaks for people who have no other champion right now," said
state LP chairman Elias Israel, adding that the party plans to spend
upwards of $7 million on campaigns in 2002. "The GOP has entirely
abandoned the small-government message, down to Governor [Paul]
Cellucci appointing Democrats to seats that could have been filled
by Republicans. People are seeing the Libertarian party as an alternative."
Could the Libertarian party really be making headway in a state
where the Kennedy name remains as transfixing to locals as that
of Red Sox slugger Nomar Garciaparra? If so, then these are heady
days for Libertarians. In fact, Bay-State Libertarians were already
showing signs of growth before Howell's performance last fall. The
number of registered Libertarians in the state has increased five-fold
in the past five years, from 3,065 in 1996 to 16,076 today. During
the same period, the number of Libertarians in elected office jumped
from zero to 18, while those in appointed positions climbed from
four to 15. Still, there's no way to downplay the importance of
Howell's surge to prominence.
A management and strategy consultant, Howell ran for state auditor
in 1998 on a budget of $8,000. For her Senate campaign in 2000,
she raised $821,000 from more than 5,000 donors, but received scant
attention from the Boston media prior to her election success. Now
the telegenic and articulate politician boasts name recognition
greater than many of next year's other potential gubernatorial candidates,
and her ascendance to the level of icon has given new hope to those
Massachusetts residents—yes, they do exist!—who favor
limited government.
It's enough to make one wonder just how much more hidden support
in this liberal haven there might be for the "bold and dramatic
reduction" proposed by Howell in areas that range from the state
income tax, which she wants to eliminate, to state involvement in
education. During an interview in her hometown of Wayland, a suburb
west of Boston, Howell said: "The growth of the Libertarian party
is a very significant trend in the state. I think that Massachusetts
is a particular opportunity because the Republican party is very
weak here, and there are a lot of people who care about civil liberties.
There's a large untapped segment of the population out there who
want smaller government." "This is a movement, and movements take
time. But I think to some degree what's precipitating this is the
decline of the Republicans," she added.
For Howell, that Republican decline is evidenced not just by the
party's embarrassingly small representation in the state legislature,
where the GOP holds less than 20 percent of seats, but also by Republican
leaders' willingness to rubber-stamp the gargantuan budgets pushed
through by Democrats. Under Governor Michael Dukakis in the 1980s,
the state's budget was $10 billion. After two "fiscally conservative"
Republican governors, William Weld and Paul Cellucci, it now rests
at about $22 billion. The Senate president and House speaker are
both Democrats and, together, they wield power arguably greater
than Gov. Cellucci's, but Howell says the legislature's Republicans
are doing just a "fraction" of what they could to fight the increases.
"The fact of the matter is that the Republican leadership is signing
off on these budgets. They never even talk about smaller government.
We've been stopped in this mentality of Left and Right, but when
we're perpetrating that, it's the same thing. These are meaningless
labels. Neither one is any way a choice for smaller government."
Howell is coy about whether her position on abortion (no laws against
it, no government funding for it) prevents her from snatching an
even greater percentage of Bay-State conservatives away from the
Republican party. She defends her position as being consistent with
her stance on government deregulation in other areas. Like drug
use.
"Prohibitions don't work. I've always believed the War on Drugs
was a bad idea. It provides excuses for abridging our rights," she
said, adding that she supports private, voluntary, treatment programs.
"If you support government treatment programs, you imply that government
can be effective in dealing with part of the problem. It can't."
Like George W. Bush, Howell has used sloganeering to soften her
message. While "compassionate conservatism" drew jeers from pundits
of various political stripes, the phrase worked nicely to repackage
some traditional conservative ideas (along with a few platitudes
about families) in a manner palatable to a wider public. Howell's
"small government is beautiful" seems to have had a similar effect.
Party officials hope to claim 40,000 registered Libertarians by
the end of 2002, and they will be lobbying Republicans to switch
affiliations. Meanwhile, Howell plans to announce whether she'll
run for governor toward the end of this year. Electoral victory
may still be a long shot, even factoring in the groundswell of support
she's built and her newfound status as almost-household name in
the Bay State. But Michael Cloud, her campaign CEO, evinces optimism
that the party's "growth" campaigns will yield a real breakthrough
during the next few election cycles. "We can't act as spoilers--you
can't spoil tainted meat," Cloud said. "We're in a position where
we could guide and direct dismantling of big government. The Republican
leadership is selling out small-government Republicans in Massachusetts,
and we're going to be the alternative."
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