A hearty “Bravo!” to Globe columnist Brian McGrory, who has written perhaps the most spot-on assessment of Scott Brown that the mainstream media has yet seen. McGrory, a middle-of-the-roader who generally wants to like “moderate” Republican candidates (he tried to like Charlie Baker, though he ultimately had to admit that Baker was a terrible candidate) as well as centrist Dems, declares that Scott Brown, he of the meetings with “kings and queens,” has no clothes.
Senator Scott Brown’s illusion fades
Go ahead and stick a fork in the image — or, more accurately, the illusion — of Scott Brown as the affable everyman, the consummate good guy who folds laundry before pointing his pickup toward the docks to shoot the breeze with his fishermen friends.
A good start. But here’s the really devastating part, where McGrory calls out Brown on having been a fake all along (emphasis mine).
Boston is atwitter with half-cocked pundits wondering whether Brown is taking too big a risk by going too negative too soon. Here’s what they’ve got wrong: It may not be a strategy. It’s probably just who he is. When things went well, when he glided into the Senate on the wings of a short campaign and a hapless opponent, Scott Brown was as charming as they come.
But as the polls turn and the specter looms of being a former somebody, Brown is a different man, a lesser one, a frat house bully spewing sophomoric lines like “Can you imagine 100 Professor Warrens down there” while trying to reheat leftover attacks….
[H]onestly and obviously, the man was never as big as the moment [of his special election win]. Not many politicians would have been. He followed, rather than led. He privately carped that he wasn’t getting enough credit. He indulged in self-serving illusions of meetings with monarchs and top secret briefings on Osama bin Laden’s death….
Campaigns are long for a reason. In this case, Brown isn’t wearing well with time.
McGrory criticizes Elizabeth Warren as well. He says she “has been overshadowed by her own reputation” and that her stump speech and first round of ads were platitude-heavy. But he liked what he saw in last week’s debate, which he describes as “the first true moment of potential fulfilled.”
In any event, though, the big news is that the word is out on Scott Brown. He’s still a pretty good campaigner (though even that is now in serious question). But as a Senator, he’s a fake, and he always has been. And it’s no longer just BMG that’s saying so.
johnk says
Brown made this the focus of his campaign, he lead his team to this. Garrett Quinn has a good post on this. It’s not just Democrats
oceandreams says
Brown would have been reasonably well positioned to run for governor if he wanted that, if he goes down in November. I understand he wants the job he has now, but why blow the most valuable political asset you’ve got?
Running for governor, the national Republican party is less of a handicap – he wouldn’t be putting Mitch McConnell and friends in power – and he’d be less likely to be facing an opponent with a national reputation and massive national fundraising abilities.
But he doesn’t look like a Weld Republican anymore. He looks like a Romney Republican – say or do anything to get elected – running a Kerry Healey campaign.
sco says
Doesn’t anyone in the Brown campaign remember the Healey “VOTE FOR DEVAL AND GET RAPED IN A PARKING LOT” ad? The right-wing activists in orange jumpsuits terrorizing John Walsh’s kid at his house? How did those go over? Shall we ask Governor Healey?
Massachusetts has demonstrated a limited tolerance for this kind of over-the-top stuff.
centralmassdad says
Well put.
I have wondered for some time how this change came about; they were rather successful in statewide campaigns for quite awhile. Even Romney came reasonably close to ousting Kennedy! Why drop what seemed to have promise in favor of something that seems to have none?
methuenprogressive says
She didn’t swing back with ‘Kings and Queens,’ his confirming bin Laden’s death after falling for an Internet hoax ‘death photo’, his claim Obama calls him ‘all the time,’ his unapologetic swearing in front of children, or his suggesting a female reporter get drunk and dance in the back of his pick-up. No mention of his attempting to dodge the debate, or his successful dodging of the press afterwards. No calling him out on his faked bi-partisanship.
There’s a lot to hit him with, but while he’s busy looking like an asshole there’s no reason to stop him. Yet.