The State GOP Just Adopted Mitt Romney's Platform for President

Photo by Gage Skidmore via Flickr

Having postponed their decision to take up a party platform until after the election, the Massachusetts GOP continued its affair with timeliness Tuesday night by rejecting the national platform in favor of Mitt Romney’s more palatable presidential platform. The Globe‘s Travis Andersen reports:

By a voice vote, the committee voted overwhelmingly to endorse Mitt Romney’s presidential platform as an addition to the current state party platform.

While the national platform condemns abortion without mentioning any exceptions for rape and incest, the Romney campaign had voiced support for such exceptions during the presidential race.

“Really, it’s a lot more moderate,” state GOP spokesman Tim Buckley said of the Romney platform, after the vote. “It’s a lot more focused on jobs and the economy.”

As you may have heard, the Massachusetts Republican party is doing some soul-searching in the wake of Tuesday’s defeats. Some, like former Governor Jane Swift, urged the party to reject the national platform and abandon social issues like gay marriage that carry little appeal with younger voters. Others suggested the defeat meant that the party should provide a sharper contrast from Democrats and move to the right.

In a way, the Romney platform seems like a solid middle ground. Like the campaign it governed, it doesn’t so much moderate on the social issues as much as it just focuses on the fiscal ones. (Well, it takes a slightly more moderate stance on abortion. But Romney opposed gay marriage, which isn’t a particularly popular position even among Massachusetts Republican candidates.) Republicans who don’t want to actually change their positions on social issues but want to appeal to a broader swath of voters usually suggest this kind of refocus on the economy. Romney spent the entire campaign suggesting that the social issues like the Democrats’ accusations of a “war on women” were an attempt to distract from his economic message.

On the other hand … Mitt Romney lost the election. So maybe that’s not such a good strategy. The Massachusetts Democrats’ spokesman sounded gleeful, reminding The Globe that Romney lost Massachusetts. We’re sure the Massachusetts GOP will hear about the election results sometime next week, though.