National GOP Wave Misses Mass.

The national GOP wave seems to have missed Massachusetts. We’re back to our pre-Sen. Scott Brown reputation as hopelessly liberal and a bastion of the Democratic Party.

State Democrats apparently learned some lessons from Brown’s upset victory in January. Gov. Deval Patrick’s campaign certainly became more focused, and the candidate worked harder campaigning. And their heavy investment in field organization — specifically get-out-the-vote operations — paid off. There was a statewide coordination and cooperation in Democratic campaigns that benefited some of the weaker candidates, including treasurer candidate Steve Grossman and auditor candidate Suzanne Bump.

Republicans suffered from the candidacy of state Rep. Jeff Perry, the candidate for the 10th Congressional District. Bill Keating forced voters to consider some of the scandals from Perry’s past — especially his complicity and cover-up in the Wareham police scandal. Perry’s campaign took a nosedive from which it never recovered when Lisa Allen came forward and repeated her testimony that Perry, as a supervising police sergeant, failed to stop or report the illegal strip search of her when she was 14. Many Republicans who read reports of court records from the time realized that Perry had given conflicting accounts of what happened, and that he had not been honest in other matters, as well — such as claiming a college degree from a diploma mill.

The GOP, following the lead of former Gov. Mitt Romney, made the mistake of putting all its congressional eggs in the Perry basket — instead of channeling resources to a district where results now show GOP candidates had a decent chance of winning U.S. House seats. Romney’s misjudgment was due to a base motive — he wanted revenge against Perry’s GOP primary opponent, Joe Malone, the former state treasurer, so he went all in with Perry and helped induce Brown to endorse him as well. Yet Romney was expedient in not vouching for Perry’s character — he carefully endorsed Perry’s position on issues, but wouldn’t take questions about his integrity. Unfortunately, Brown lost some credibility when he vouched for Perry’s character in a radio spot and in interviews, yet admitted that he didn’t read records available online about Perry’s police scandal.

Even GOP gubernatorial candidate Charlie Baker was hurt by Perry when a fortnight before the election — right after Allen courageously went public with her testimony about Perry — Baker was put on the defensive for several days about his planning to appear at a rally for Perry. This seemed like a blunder by the Baker campaign since the candidate was already suffering from a gender gap with Patrick and, further, needed to show that he was a man of integrity, not just a party loyalist.

Republicans have a lot of rebuilding to do, but if Romney is the architect, we’re in trouble.