Christy Mihos needs to attract the support of 15 percent of the delegates to next week’s Republican State Convention, but he doesn’t seem to be interested in currying favor with the GOP base. How else to explain how the gadfly gubernatorial candidate can shower praise on his potential Democratic and independent opponents but rip his own party’s other candidate — then say he’d support his Republican opponent in the general election?
At a forum yesterday, Mihos sang the praises of Gov. Deval Patrick for rejecting most of the proposed health care premium rate hikes for small businesses that were planned by the state’s insurers.
Mihos, who opposes the state and federal health care laws, said his convenience store business recently got its latest rate hikes, which he said boosted the cost of a family plan to $30,000 a year and an individual plan to $10,000. He said Patrick’s directive to his insurance commissioner to reject all those rates above the rate of medical inflation was a necessary step by government — a position seemingly contrary to his call to get government out of the regulation business and let competition set the rates.
“We are in a crisis situation,” Mihos said at the Rapport Center for Law and Public Service at Suffolk University Law School. “He did the right thing.”
During his presentation, Mihos came out against the proposed casino bill saying the social ills caused by gambling are not worth the revenues brought into the state. But he then declared the state should legalize sports betting “because people are doing it already anyway.” He said the new enterprise could be operated by the state Lottery, which he called a national model of efficiency, and lavished praise on state Treasurer Timothy Cahill, who’s running as an independent.
“Kudos to Tim Cahill,” he said. “He runs a good lottery.”
But you would have had to listen very closely to hear a kind word about Charlie Baker or his running mate, state Sen. Richard Tisei. Mihos, who left the GOP to run as an independent in 2006 before returning to the party, blamed Baker for the state’s 2006 health care law (“It’s Romneycare and Charliecare that’s given us Obamacare”); the Big Dig, when Baker served in the administrations of former Govs. William Weld and Paul Cellucci (“You paid for a Bentley and you got a Yugo”); runaway health care premiums, citing Baker’s stewardship of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care; and Baker’s sway with party and government insiders.
Mihos called Tisei “a drag on the ticket” and labeled him with what could be considered the ultimate slur to a Republican — “too liberal.”
He said a number of Republican operatives he’s talked to are urging a floor fight to get another lieutenant governor candidate on the ballot at next week’s convention in Worcester, but he wouldn’t name names, either of those seeking a floor fight or anyone who could emerge as a candidate. And with just 10 days to go, no one has come forward to express interest.
Mihos admitted his fundraising has been “very lackluster,” but he attributed that to his reputation as “someone who speaks truth to power.”
“I’m the bad boy Republican,” he said.
Mihos said he’s confident he’ll get the necessary 15 percent from the convention to get on the ballot but admitted he’s not the darling of the establishment. And he said even without money, no one will out-campaign him in the primary or general election.
“I’ll go to the opening of an envelope,” he said.
He lambasted former Gov. Mitt Romney without mentioning his name as running “a corrupt Republican administration.” When one of the audience members asked how he could expect GOP support after hurting then-candidate Kerry Healey’s chances four years ago and then returning to the fold, Mihos didn’t skip a beat.
“You must be for Charlie Baker,” he said.
