REPORT: Jim "Jones" Lyons is Telling Candidates He's Working on a "Project" to Oust Amy Carnevale
The plans were revealed during recent meetings with GOP State Committee candidates.
Clockwise from top left: Jim “Jones” Lyons, Geoff Diehl, Rick Green, and Brad Wyatt.
Programming Note: Readers have alerted us that some current members of the Massachusetts Republican State Committee are upset that our blog contains the name of the MassGOP. We are publishing this final report under our current name before rebranding. Suggestions are welcome.
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Jim “Jones” Lyons, the former head of the MassGOP, is meeting with candidates for the Massachusetts Republican State Committee and pitching them on a “project” that will culminate in the removal of current chair Amy Carnevale at the first meeting of the new committee later this year.
The effort, according to those who’ve met with Lyons, also involves Geoff Diehl, Chinese auto parts mogul Rick Green, and Brad Wyatt, a Worcester-based computer programmer and businessman who is calculating which among them has the best chance of becoming chairman next year. In this scenario, Lyons — assuming he can muster the humility — would decline to run against Carnevale if he couldn’t secure enough votes, giving either Green or Diehl a clear path to run instead. It’s widely expected that Wyatt will run again for RNC national committeeman against Ron Kaufman because he believes the national post will be good for his business.
That said, no position, whether chair or national committeeman, has been cornered by any of the four, signaling an acknowledgement that Jim Jones is perhaps too toxic to make a direct comeback as chairman. This sentiment was echoed by Jim’s State Committee candidate Jeffrey Yull, who recently told a North Shore Republican town committee meeting that “their candidate” for chair will not be Jim.
However, there’s no reason to doubt that if Lyons, Green, Diehl, or Wyatt gains a foothold in the MassGOP, that person will find a way to ensure all four secure some level of power, prestige, and/or a paycheck, dragging the party back to where it was when Lyons left — $600,000 in debt, paying private investigators to stalk other Republicans, and mired in multiple lawsuits.
In recent weeks, Jim has been dispatched to court Republican State Committee candidates over breakfast and lunch, turning on his charm as he attempts to disarm them with lies about how Carnevale is failing to raise more money than he did, evidence be damned. In 2019 — a comparable year to 2023, before a presidential election and without a top-of-the-ticket candidate or party convention to inflate fundraising — Jim raised just over $370,000 across the party’s state and federal accounts; by comparison, the MassGOP has reported raising nearly $800,000 in 2023.
Importantly, at least one of the candidates who met with Jim is not an incumbent and was not recruited by him, indicating that Jim and his ilk believe they can’t oust Carnevale without converting some of the non-Kool Aid candidates to their cause. This person said Jim left their meeting by asking if they could pay for his meal.
“The difference between Jim as chairman and Jim now is he used to always pay for the meal,” the candidate added. “I could tell he was a little light in the wallet.”
Another surrogate assisting the aspirational quartet is Sandy Tennant, the infamous 90s-era GOP operative who entered rehab after taking former Congressman Peter Blute on a “Booze Cruise” around Boston Harbor with a number of scantily clad young women. Other State Committee candidates who have received calls from Tennant recall that he claimed Kaufman, the national committeeman, is working with Holly Robichaud, a Republican consultant who managed Chris Doughty’s 2022 bid for governor, to run State Committee candidates who will support Carnevale and vote to appoint Robichaud as the party’s new political director.
Robichaud did not return a request for comment on the allegations, and no one else we’ve spoken with backed up this claim.
Since a list of candidates was published in December, allies of Lyons have launched a modestly-funded array of Facebook advertisements promoting some of his candidates. Vote Real Reform MA, an anonymous page paying for the ads, was recently unmasked as being run by state committeeman Steve Fruzzetti, a 53-year-old professional dog walker and Lyons ally who can never seem to get his calls returned by Jim.
Fruzzetti is trying to “fetch” a few State Committee wins for Jim Jones.
Members of the Milton Republican Town Committee have said privately that they’re looking for a way to remove Fruzzetti as a member, admitting that he’s been a general embarrassment since being forced to resign from the cemetery commission over politicizing a Memorial Day ceremony.
The MassGOP, for as long as we can remember, has always had two factions, one conservative and one moderate/establishment. It’s healthy for both sides to debate our goals, beliefs, priorities, and direction. But tossing a party chair before the end of her term has never been done. Every chair, including Jim, deserved a full two years to prove if their leadership would pay off. By scheming to deny Carnevale of the same, the individuals here are admitting they’re not working in the best interests of the MassGOP or even conservative causes, just themselves. Vote accordingly.