Election ’82: Liberals on the Loose

The basement of the town office building in Framingham, Mass., was covered with colored animal pictures, indicating either a child’s birthday party or a political function. This night, it was the Republicans and their red, white, and blue elephants, come for a meet-the-candidates session. The event drew fifty people, a significant proportion of the state’s GOP.

Massachusetts is not quite as politically lopsided as the old Deep South was, but the Democrats aren’t complaining. They hold precisely four-fifths of the seats in the state senate and a larger proportion in the house. In 1978, the Republicans did not contest 78 per cent of the races in the state. The registration figures show equal, and hefty, numbers of Democrats and Independents, with Republicans trailing a remote third.

About the Author

Richard Brookhiser

Historian Richard Brookhiser is a senior editor of National Review and a senior fellow at the National Review Institute.

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The basement of the town office building in Framingham, Mass., was covered with colored animal pictures, indicating either a child’s birthday party or a political function. This night, it was the Republicans and their red, white, and blue elephants, come for a meet-the-candidates session. The event drew fifty people, a significant proportion of the state’s GOP.

Massachusetts is not quite as politically lopsided as the old Deep South was, but the Democrats aren’t complaining. They hold precisely four-fifths of the seats in the state senate and a larger proportion in the house. In 1978, the Republicans did not contest 78 per cent of the races in the state. The registration figures show equal, and hefty, numbers of Democrats and Independents, with Republicans trailing a remote third.