A Very Bad Day for the GOP

Edward J. King began his Tuesday schedule with a brisk three-mile jog through the streets of Winthrop. Wednesday morning, King reverted to his usual routine of a run along Winthrop beach around 6 a.m. The more important difference, of course, was that on Wednesday, it was no longer a former Massport director chugging across the sand. It was the governor-elect.

The election proved, more than anything else, that the usual rules about Republicans and Democrats simply don't apply in Massachusetts. King, although a Democrat, was the favored candidate of big business, and managed to raise far more money than his Republican opponent, State Rep. Francis W. Hatch Jr. '46. As a result, King appears likely to appoint members of the state regulatory commissions who are highly acceptable to the industries concerned.

But King is still a Democrat, and as President Carter pointed out in his Lynn endorsement speech for King, he was nominated in a fair and open primary (where he defeated one-term Gov. Michael S. Dukakis).

For those reasons, he had the whole-hearted public support of all state Democratic leaders--except Sen. Edward M. Kennedy '54--and the valuable fund-raising help of U.S. House Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill Jr. (D-Mass.). Oddly enough, O'Neill's son, Lt. Gov. Thomas P. O'Neill III, had unexpectedly found himself as King's running mate the morning after the primary.

King proved an aggressive campaigner who excited his friends and infuriated his enemies. Promising to stop state funding of abortion, re-institute capital punishment, and wage an all-out war against crime (three issues about which the governor can actually do very little), King called for a return to the good old days.

In the final weeks of the campaign, King cooled his social-issue rhetoric, promised jobs and prosperity, defended his record as Massport director, and with characteristic disregard for administrative reality, promised state workers substantial pay raises while pledging to reduce state spending enough to slash local property taxes by $500 million.

Whether King will have the same disastrous record with his campaign promises that Dukakis did with his 1974 last-minute "No New Taxes" gaffe remains to be seen.

Hatch, who political analysts thought had a better-than-even shot at victory in the first few days after the primary, never amassed enough support from liberal Democrats, and was not able to provide the voters an exciting alternative to King.

He also lost most traditional sources of Republican votes and funding because of King's end-run to claim the right wing of the political spectrum.

Meanwhile, the question of the hour is whether Massachusetts Republicans will be able to regroup over the next four years and counter-attack in 1982. As it stands now, the Republicans have been shut out of any statewide offices. For them, at least, it's going to be a long drought.