Libertarian Dan Fishman won 16,668 votes, over four times more than the 3,650 votes that separated Republican Richard Tisei (175,953 votes) and incumbent Democrat John Tierney (179,603 votes).
Republicans reacted with a firestorm of attacks against the Libertarian, claiming he shouldn’t have run, he "stole" the election, and other sharp criticisms – while refusing to acknowledge the track record of Republican Tisei.
Republican critics claim that Fishman’s votes leave Congress with one less Republican to repeal Obamacare. Yet these same Republican apologists refused to oppose their own Republican governor, Mitt Romney, when he championed and signed into law Romneycare, setting the stage for the passage of Obamacare in 2010.
These same Republican apologists refused to oppose or condemn presidential candidate Romney when he switched his pledge to repeal Obamacare if elected to "repeal and replace" Obamacare. Massachusetts Republicans continued to rail against Obamacare in the face of this strident hypocrisy on display by their former governor and presidential candidate.
Now they content that electing another Republican, and Richard Tisei in particular, was of paramount importance. They claim his defeat was the fault of Libertarian Fishman, who ran on balancing the budget, cutting government spending, and repealing Obamacare – while replacing it with nothing.
They refuse to acknowledge that Tisie has a solidly Big Government track record in Massachusetts Senate and that this explains the real reason Tisei failed to win enough support for a victory:
- Republican Tisei voted for Romneycare and would likely have voted with Romney to replace Obamacare with a nationalized version of Romneycare.
- Republican Tisei voted for higher state government spending – every year.
- Republican Tisei voted for scores of new and increased taxes.
- Republican Tisei voted for the New England version of Cap and Trade.
- Republican Tisei opposed X ballot initiatives to cut taxes and endorsed the oppositions’ position that high taxes in Massachusetts (dubbed "Taxachusetts’) should stay high.
If his Big Government voting record wasn’t bad enough, Tisei didn’t even support his fellow Republicans. In order to protect his relationship withe Democratic State Senate President Therese Murray, hewithheld his active support of Republican Tom Keyes, a fiscal conservative who subsequently lost to the Democrat by only 4%.
