Thursday, 4:30 PM
New England GOP postpones conference, even before election 'thumping'
By Andrew Ryan, Globe Correspondent
There will be no rousing speech tonight to kick off the New England Republican Council's issues conference at the Harvard Club in Back Bay. There will be no cocktail hour, no cigars, no breakout sessions, no featured speakers and no GOP networking.
That's because this weekend's conference, which organizers hoped would draw some 150 Republicans from all six New England states, has been rescheduled for late April. As Election Day approached and anticipation rose about what President Bush would eventually call an Election Day 'thumping,' the cancellations began. Most said they would be too busy after a long campaign season.
"Reading between the lines, I think they were also a little down because the way things were going," said William C Sawyer, a long-time Republican State Committee member in Massachusetts who is spearheading an effort to resurrect the council conference.
Organizers decided that party members would need a little time before they gathered in the country's bluest state in what would become one of the largest tidal waves of Democratic victories the country has ever seen. In Massachusetts, Democrats won back the governor's office after 16-years of GOP control and now have all six statewide offices. In the Legislature, Republicans are outnumbered roughly 7-to-1.
"When we started this thing, we were looking at the plight of the party in Massachusetts," said Sawyer, noting that now only 12.5 percent of the state's registered voters are card-carrying Republicans. "Little did we know that today in every state the party was in trouble."
Democrats are on the verge of gaining four New England seats in the US House of Representatives, leaving Christopher Shays of Connecticut as the lone Republican. If Joseph Courtney's 167-vote lead holds over incumbent Robert Simmons in eastern Connecticut, Democrats will hold 21 of the 22 seats in the six states.
Democrats picked up a senator and a governor in New England, and Republicans lost ground in every state Legislature.
The New England Republican Council's issues conference, which had been an annual event until five or six years ago, was designed to rally and refocus the GOP faithful.
Rescheduled for the last weekend in April, the conference will tackle issues that include the national debt, immigration, global warming and health care for a region "crying out for a centrist movement," Sawyer said.
"This is good conference for all of us."
