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Republican gubernatorial candidate Geoff Diehl will today offer the Massachusetts voters a choice, not an echo.

That is when Diehl, 52, accepts, as expected, the Republican Partys endorsement for governor at its convention in Springfield.

I have bad news for Maura Healey and her fellow progressive liberals pushing for total government control over our lives, Diehl will say in his prepared remarks.

We know what theyre up to and were not going to let it happen. Massachusetts is not some social science experiment. This is our home.

His speech urges the gathering of conservative Republicans to stand up for their beliefs even when they are not in line with what the mainstream media and the establishment are selling.

They call you names and say youre racist. They kick you off social media and they try to cancel you. Its lonely battle. But its worth it.

Progressives fear us, he says, because we have the courage to stand by our convictions and to fight against their great reset of our country.

We are not going to give up and we are not going to give in. Nobody is going to take our state away from us. Not now. Not ever.

He chastises Attorney General Maua Healey for cheering when rioters in the name of George Floyd looted and torched stores and businesses in downtown Boston and trashed police cruisers, sending nine cops to the hospital.

Healey at the time told an audience, Yes, America is burning. But thats how forests grow.

Really?

Healey is of course favored to win the Democratic nomination for governor over challenger state Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz, a fellow progressive. The Democratic Party convention is in June.

At stake is who will succeed outgoing Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, who is not running for re-election after serving two terms. Baker, considered a RINO, had control of the GOP wrested away from him by conservative Trump supporter Jim Lyons, now the state party chairman. Lyons supported Diehl.

Baker, who was endorsed by the party at three prior conventions, is not attending this convention and has not endorsed a potential successor. When grapes go sour, grapes go sour.

Diehl, who ran against Democrat U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren in 2018, is being opposed by Wrentham GOP businessman Chris Doughty, who is running for office the first time. It is expected that Doughty will run in the September primary if he can gather the necessary 15% of the convention vote.

Either way, Diehl, who was prepared to run against Baker in the GOP primary, announced his candidacy well before Baker chose not to run. And he makes it clear in his speech that he is running against Healeys, not Doughtys, record.

Diehl, as a former state representative from Whitman, touts his work leading the fight against permanent increases in the state gasoline tax by tying it to inflation, blocking the proposed attempt to bring the Olympics to Boston and having the courage to take on Elizabeth Warren in 2018.

In that Senate race, Diehl beat out two Republicans in the primary to win the nomination before losing to Warren.

One of the first things he will do as governor, Diehl says, is rehire all of the state cops and state employees who Baker fired over the vaccine mandate. Next, he will fire the people who fired them.

While Diehl condemns unnamed others (Charlie Baker) who sat on the sidelines in the last presidential election, he adds, We Republicans pitched in to help Donald Trump become president in 2016.

Trump in return has endorsed Diehl.

I was right here, in the arena, fighting with you, for our families and for America, Diehl says.

Well, Im proud to be doing it with you.

Game on.

Peter Lucas is a veteran Massachusetts political reporter and columnist.

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Lucas: Diehl ready to take on progressives amid race for governors office - Boston Herald