July 9, 2010

22 Days for Beacon Hill to Make Progress

Hey Team,

I couldn’t begin this post without again extending a big thank you to all the volunteers and supporters who marched with us over the 4th of July weekend in the scorching heat! We had a great turnout and got a great reception at each of the parades we were in – thank you! We couldn’t have done it without you.

We have some great footage from the weekend, so check it out by clicking here.

We had great news out of the fundraising world this week – our numbers are on the rise and ahead of our opponents, but we need to keep up the momentum! We know Deval Patrick and Tim Murray and their allies will spend heavily in the fall to try and win the election, so we have to outdo their efforts.

We also had our first call at home event this week, putting to work our new Team Baker Online Action Center. In one night, from their own homes, we had dozens of volunteers making calls across the state to thousands of voters! It was really awesome and a big thank you to everyone who made calls. It’s a great tool and we plan to use it as much as possible between now and November 2, so if you haven’t yet, go here and sign up to make calls! Team Baker Online Action Center

One more note, there are now 22 days left in the legislative session this year before Beacon Hill goes home for the summer. My running-mate, Richard Tisei, is working hard to push some – any – reforms through the Senate during these final days to save taxpayers money and lessen the impact of local aid cuts on cities and towns, but as usual he’s met with a lot of resistance from the special interests. This year marks the third in a row that local aid has been cut, forcing teacher layoffs, fewer firefighters and police, shortened library hours, and a host of other local cutbacks. It can’t continue. Deval Patrick and Tim Cahill don’t support the reforms needed to change this habit of raising taxes or making cuts, but I DO! We can make this change.

See you on the campaign trail!

Charlie

April 24, 2010

Update from Charlie

For the past couple of months, Richard Tisei and I have been working our way around Massachusetts – 7 days a week – meeting with voters, collecting signatures, talking to Republican Convention delegates, and raising money.

We have a very long way to go, but right now, it’s all good. This past week-end, we received an overwhelming endorsement from delegates attending the Republican Convention in Worcester. Among the 3,000+ attendees, we racked up 89% of the vote for Governor, and 100% of the vote for Lieutenant Governor (Richard was running unopposed). Since candidates need to receive at least 15% of the vote at the Convention to make the primary ballot in the fall, Christy Mihos, my opponent for the Republican nomination heading into the Convention, won’t be on the ballot in the fall.

By the way, Christy was very gracious afterward, endorsed Richard and me, and bought me a beer the other night. He made clear he thinks we’re the right choice for Massachusetts.

While the Convention had many, many highlights – including a big-time shout-out from U.S. Senator Scott Brown during his keynote address – my favorite moment was standing before the delegates and delivering my nomination speech. Those who’ve heard me before would have heard some familiar themes – state government is broken, our fiscal house is out of order, our business climate is a disaster, and to get Massachusetts working again, we need to cut spending, cut taxes and reform state government. It’s also a message that resonates with voters. A recent poll indicated that 75% of Massachusetts voters think the November elections should be about jobs, taxes and spending.

If you’d like to watch my speech, here’s the link. It’s 20 minutes long – but really really good(!).

Here is Richard’s speech, too. He also hit the ball out of the park.

The other highlight was the size and enthusiasm of the crowd. I’ve been to several state party conventions, and this was, by far, the biggest and rowdiest one I’ve ever been to. Traveling from one event to another on Friday night, and then working the floor and the stands on Saturday, I realized just how many people were in town for the show. I also couldn’t help noticing how many young people turned out. It was great.

We’re also making major progress on our signature collection efforts. As I’ve said before, “no signatures, no campaign.” On this one, there are no second chances. Richard and I each need 10,000 signatures certified by town clerks to make the ballot. And thanks to our team of volunteers, we are making terrific progress. Don’t let up, though. We need far more than 10,000 raw signatures to end up with 10,000 that can/will be certified.

Many thanks to those of you who are part of our efforts on this. It’s been amazing to watch it unfold across the Commonwealth. And keep going!

This race has a very, very long way to go – but if someone had told me when I jumped in last summer that by the end of April, I’d have a terrific running mate, we’d have locked up the Republican nomination, built a terrific statewide organization, outraised both of our remaining opponents, and were more or less even with two Constitutional Officers in the latest polls, I would have said, “Yee-Haw!”

Like I said, long way to go – but thank you for your help and support.

Charlie Baker

March 3, 2010

Baker-Tisei Team Raises Over $560,000 In February

Nearly $1 Million in first two months of 2010

The Baker for Governor and Tisei for Lieutenant Governor campaigns announced today that they raised a combined $561,773.75 in the month of February and outraised their opponents by as much as a factor of six.

Charlie Baker’s campaign raised $454,878.77 last month while Richard Tisei brought in $106,895.08, from over 2,000 individual donors combined.  In the first two months of 2010, the Baker-Tisei Team raised just under $1 million dollars, reaching $950,224.56 combined.

In February, Baker and Tisei’s fundraising far surpassed that of their opponents, both as individual candidates and as tickets.  According to OCPF records, Baker-Tisei outraised Patrick-Murray ($249,737.47 combined) by 2 to 1, and outraised Cahill-Loscocco ($86,594.85) by 6 times.

“Every day, more people are joining the Baker-Tisei team because they know Charlie and Richard will cut spending, lower taxes, and bring back jobs in order to get Massachusetts back on track,” said campaign manager Lenny Alcivar.  “Massachusetts citizens know they will put taxpayers first and bring real leadership and real reform to Beacon Hill.”

For more information about Charlie Baker and Richard Tisei, please visit www.charliebaker2010.com and www.richardtisei2010.com.

February 18, 2010

Cahill “Doesn’t have enough insight”…

In today’s Boston Globe, Treasurer Tim Cahill claims he “doesn’t have enough insight” into our broken budget to be able to offer any ways to fix it.  A bit of an odd admission coming from our state’s Treasurer!  I’m not even an office-holder and I’ve been able to come up with a number of ways in which we could cut spending and consolidate and reform state government.  You can read about some of my ideas in the Globe’s article here: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/02/18/patrick_challengers_offer_ideas_to_close_budget_gap/

My running mate, State Senator Richard Tisei, knows a lot about the budget and year after year has fought for commonsense fiscal solutions which would make our government smaller and more efficient.  Here is his statement on Tim Cahill’s comments:

“This is just another example of Tim Cahill’s protecting big spending and the status quo on Beacon Hill.  The next Governor is going to have to be willing to make tough choices and big decisions on the budget, and Charlie Baker will.  We know Governor Patrick doesn’t have what it takes to run the state effectively and to control spending, today Treasurer Cahill reaffirmed that he doesn’t have the knowledge or the willingness to bring about change either.”

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