re: #140 HappyWarrior

Weld seems like a decent guy which is why I was shocked he threw his lot in with Gary Johnson.

I’m not. Massachusetts has always had its libertarians.

There was a woman in Marblehead who was always presenting herself as a “poor, overtaxed, housewife”. Her name was Barbara Anderson and she played that like a fiddle for YEARS. She is best known for Proposition 2-1/2, the property tax referendum that was based on the law in California.

Most of her life, she was the poor homeowner and housewife, taxed for our sins. The conservatives in my state never shut up about it. She had a column in the local paper for years.

Near the end of her life, Barbara was interviewed by the local weekly on the North Shore. She mentioned, in passing, and without further comment, that she discovered Ayn Rand when she was younger.

That was it. The poor housewife thing? Phony. She was a stone cold Randian.

Bill Weld is no Randian. Not at all. But if you’re a Massachusetts conservative from the 1990’s and later, you’re probably a “street libertarian” in the same way that many leftists followed a colloquial “street communism”.

To this day, Massachusetts Republicans are all a bit libertarian, because it fits their inclinations—and their base.