I just can’t get over how terrible the video just put out by the Brown campaign is. Apparently, it’s supposed to show us how much he cares about jobs, and how much thought he’s put into what to do about the jobs issue. But the content is so inane, and the editing is so amateurish, that it’s almost as if an anti-Brown group had spliced together a bunch of clips of Brown saying nothing, in order to make fun of him. To refresh your recollection, here is a word-for-word transcript of what Brown says in the video (which you can watch here):
People are hurting, they’re frustrated, they’re scared. They’re just basically getting up day to day and paying the bills. What I’m finding as I travel around, they need regulatory certainty, tax certainty, and just taking that wet blanket off. They need government to just take that wet blanket off and leave them alone. Because tax increases in the middle of a two and a half, three year recession are an absolute job killer. Let people catch up. and let’s do things that make sense, because right now there’s just such an overkill and they don’t know what’s next. They don’t know what’s next, and that’s the biggest challenge. Listen, we live in the greatest country in the world, and if we just take off the gloves and let us go forth and conquer, we’ll do fine.
And remember – this is the campaign’s own video. This is the best they’ve got. Anyway, I was amused to receive an email from Brown’s daughter, Arianna, in which she complains that the mean ol’ libruls are raising money to knock off her dad, and asks us to chip in so that he can spend more time saying nothing. Here’s what she has to say:
My dad, Scott Brown, is the target again of special interests that want higher taxes and more spending.
A liberal group calling itself MassUniting is raising money from undisclosed sources and spending it on negative TV ads that distort my dad’s record fighting for jobs. Another group, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, has reportedly raised $100,000 to defeat my dad. In addition, the ultra-left MoveOn.org has been protesting my dad at events here in Massachusetts.
This is only the beginning.
That is why I’m writing you this quick email asking for a $20, $10, or even $5 donation right now.
My dad just finished a hectic two-week jobs tour in Massachusetts in which he talked about empowering businesses to hire more people by cutting taxes and reducing government regulation. Here’s a video of my dad at a diner during his jobs tour talking about what we need to get the economy moving again. He is entirely focused on putting people back to work.
This unprecedented negative campaign from the other side is poisoning our politics. The forces fighting for bigger government, higher taxes and more spending are desperate to defeat my dad and they will do or say anything to get their way.
Your donation will show my dad that you are willing to fight back.
Click here to watch the video and contribute: http://www.scottbrown.com/video-my-dad-scott-brown
Thank you!
– Arianna Brown
There’s a lot to laugh at in there, especially the bit about the “hectic” jobs tour, which was apparently so hectic that Brown forgot to actually say anything. It’s also faintly hilarious to hear a Brown supporter whining about “undisclosed sources” of campaign money, when Brown himself voted to filibuster a law that would have remedied that problem, and has benefited from precisely that same kind of fundraising.
Meanwhile, non-crazy Republicans like former SJC Justice and US Solicitor General Charles Fried are asking hard questions of our junior Senator.
As Brown’s reelection effort looms, voters need to know what kind of Republican he is. Had he been asked whether he would support a budget deal that matched every $10 in spending cuts with just $1 in tax increases, would he have answered no, as every candidate for the Republican presidential nomination did on national television in Iowa? At least Brown didn’t choose default over the budget deal forced on us by McConnell and Boehner. But will Brown accept the principle that there must be revenue increases – maybe some rate increases but certainly the elimination of loopholes and trimming of some deductions? Yes or no? Does he agree with Warren Buffett that it is outrageous that a billionaire financier pays taxes at a lower rate than his receptionist?
I’d love to know the answer to those questions too, especially the 10-to-1 question. Perhaps some enterprising traditional media type will ask him; my missives to the Brown campaign have, tragically, thus far gone unanswered.
“Unprecedented” was the word that jumped out at me. They really think this sort of attack is unprecedented? They haven’t been paying attention for the last 30 years, I guess.
yes, I noticed that one too. Arianna is young, though – she probably hasn’t seen very many political campaigns. Maybe that explains it.
If the term jumped out at both you and dcsohl then for it’s intended shock people into giving effect I would say mission accomplished.
Given her age, she should have seen the attacks on her Senior Senator in 2004 or the attacks on the President about where he was born. In both those cases, liars ignored basic official records.
Even ignoring attacks on Democrats, she should have seen some of the attacks by the tea party challengers in the primaries. Some of the charges against the incumbents were over the top.
So far the attacks on her dad are:
– He voted for gutting the EPA’s ability to control green house gases
– He voted against extending unemployment several times
– He voted against several jobs bills, including the one (last May) that he got a huge amount of positive press for cosponsoring when he signed on in March.
The problem is that all these things are true – that is his record. So, no matter how good a dad he is – even as he was so good he bought a pickup to transport her horse – she can’t expect that he does not have to answer for votes that people don’t like.
No doubt. It’s really e only thing Brown is good at, raising cash for his election.
Still, she allowed her name to be used. So she gets the credit/blame.
I should not have assumed otherwise. My bad!
Brown is the epitome of mediocrity. If we can’t beat this guy in Mass then we have serious problems.
This is unprecedented because such attacks have been run — and legitimately — against machine politicians, but they have never been run against someone as pure of heart, so dedicated to getting beyond the partisan bickering in Washington as the Hero of the 2010 Special Election, Senator Scott Brown.
Senator Scott Brown is Very Special. He’ll tell you himself.
and are more sensitive to any criticism of them.
I guess it is unusual to have ads out as early as they were. From our side, I think that was needed as the media was supporting his image as man of the people and bipartisan – and that needed to be fairly challenged.
His complete lack of focus in that excerpt is similar to every speech I have seen him give in the Senate. It is almost like they are word salad that paint a picture of frustration rather than coherently express any ideas about concerns or problems.
If these were comments where he was speaking off the cuff, I would wonder if he is just inarticulate. – though he did graduate from Tufts and from Law School. However, in the Senate he is reading a written speech and he has a staff that likely includes someone who writes his speeches.
I wonder if that team is so cynical that they have think that a majority of Massachusetts voters want someone no more articulate or knowledgeable than they are themselves. Is that another part of the “regular guy” theme he has run with?
Read about it here
–Leo Maley
Full disclosure: I work as a Community Organizer for the Mass. Nurses Association.
The Massachusetts Nurses Association is a union of registered nurses. With 23,000 members of its own in Massachusetts, the MNA is also a founding member of National Nurses United, the largest national nurses union in the United States with more than 170,000 members from coast to coast.