Terrier: MA embraces Mitt, rejects revolutionary spirit

By: Daisy

Lately, I must confess, I've been a bit snappish. I have growled at my human friend, Rich, for daring to try to dislodge me from my sunny perch atop the bed (I think it was probably unintentional) ... and I have stuck my paws in the ground and refused to budge -- even slipped out of my leash -- when he has tried to redirect me on our morning walks on the North Cambridge bike path.
I believe this frustration is a sign of a deeper malaise: That Massachusetts, the so-called Cradle of Liberty, has dared to vote for its former governor, Mitt Romney, in the Republican presidential primary, one of 10 contests in play yesterday on "Super Tuesday."
Have Bay State Republicans forgotten their revolutionary roots? It was only last weekend -- on two occasions, actually -- that I got to scamper across the North Bridge in Concord, where, on April 19, 1775, a brave band of patriots fired "the shot heard 'round the world" against the tyrannic government of King George III of England.
While at the time I was more interested in frolicking in the snow and gazing at the birds near the Concord River, I am now saddened by how far Republicans have strayed from their state's revolutionary heritage. Their forebears rebelled against a tyrant king and Parliament ... yet the Republicans of today embraced an even bigger tyrant, a man who outrageously drove cross-country with his Irish setter Seamus in a crate atop the family station wagon in 1983. Talk about "Intolerable Acts"!
What is even more intolerable is that not only did the Bay State GOP vote for Romney, it did so by an overwhelming margin. Romney earned over two-thirds of the primary vote -- more than 70 percent -- and thus got all of the 41 Massachusetts delegates in play. Truly, Massachusetts Republicans acted like a dog that licked the hand of a bad master. After all, the New York Times reported, Romney "chose not to seek a second term as governor, announcing that decision more than a year before he left office and spending much of that final year outside the state." And the Boston Globe noted that the last time Romney ran for president, in 2008, "he regularly made Massachusetts the punch line in his remarks because of its liberal social culture. He told the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2007 that Massachusetts was 'sort of San Francisco East, Nancy Pelosi style.'"
Sigh ... I guess it's not like there were much better alternatives out there. This Republican contest is sort of like the lesser of four evils. But it did pain me to see Romney voting at a senior center in Belmont, right down the road from revolutionary Concord ... and celebrating his win at the Westin Copley Place in Boston, across the Charles River from my home in Cambridge.
And I leave you with this, faithful readers: If cars had existed in 1775 ... and Paul Revere had one on his famous "Midnight Ride" before the Battles of Lexington and Concord ... and his little doggie wanted to come along ... don't you think Paul, unlike Mitt, would have found a way to put the dog in the car and not on top of it?

Daisy is a 9-year-old West Highland white terrier living in Cambridge, Mass. Her column runs regularly.