Hub Blog has a good summary of advice for the Massachusetts Republican Party after an election that made it more irrelevant than ever. A lot of it is quite similar to a couple of essays that CommonWealth magazine ran eight years ago.

Former Oklahoma Congressman Mickey Edwards argued in 2000 that the Republican Party’s philosophy was strong (“…in working-class Massachusetts, Republicans have a message that will sell.”) but that its infrastructure was in terrible shape:

To climb out of the hole and achieve long-term success, Republicans need to build a farm team, gaining a foothold at the bottom of the pyramid by focusing far more of its attention on municipal offices, sheriffs, and state legislators.

In my companion piece, I echoed a lot of what Hub Blog says today, including the suggestion that the Mass. GOP simply change its name:

This move may seem cosmetic, but it would send a clear message to Massachusetts voters that your candidates are different from Trent Lott and Jesse Helms. There is a precedent here: From the 1940s until a few years ago, the GOP in Minnesota was actually called the Independent Republican Party (partly in response to the state Democrats changing their name to the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party). The IR was fairly successful at winning elections, even as Minnesota became one of the most Democratic states in the country in presidential races.

There was also this suggestion, which obviously hasn’t been followed:

STAY OUT OF PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS. George W. Bush has apparently quashed a plan that would have taken away New Hampshire’s right to hold the first Republican presidential primary every four years. Too bad for the Massachusetts GOP, whose leaders keep getting distracted by the primary next door. Hooking up with presidential candidates well to the right of the Massachusetts electorate, they pursue White House jobs at the expense of their popularity at home.