It’s all well and good for newly-minted Herald columnist Joe Battenfeld (or, as Ben Smith at Politico describes him, one of Scott Brown’s “most enthusiastic and obsequious supporters”) to advise Scott Brown to run for president in 2012. It’s also fine, I guess, for Joe to have as his principal arguments: (1) Having endorsed Jeff Perry and Bill Hudak, Brown can’t credibly claim the “independent” mantle any longer and therefore, if he runs for reelection, will probably suffer the same fate in 2012 as every other MA Republican did in 2010; (2) Ayla Brown is a better singer than Bristol Palin is a dancer; and (3) the Tea Party might not ♥ Mitt Romney.
Seriously – those are the arguments. But if Joe wants to write that column, hey, it’s his column and he can write whatever he wants.
But for the Herald to make it front-page material? That, friends, is loony. Though it’s not that much loonier than, say, “political commentator” (only at the Boston Herald, AFAIK) Jennifer Braceras declaring MA “the biggest loser in this campaign,” presumably because we declined to elect the dishonorable Jeff Perry to Congress, or the cantankerous Charlie Baker to Beacon Hill. Look, Republicans, if you want to win races, you have to run decent candidates and decent campaigns. It’s really not that complicated.
Nor is it much loonier than this whopper from Charles Krauthammer, a syndicated columnist on the Herald’s op-ed page:
Obamacare and the stimulus were passed on near-total party-line votes – legal, of course, but deeply offensive to the people’s sense of democratic legitimacy.
Right … because majority votes in both houses of Congress are of course “deeply offensive” to the democratic process. Whereas, no doubt, the coming party-line vote in John “It’s not ‘Boner,’ dammit!” Boehner’s House of Horrors Representatives to repeal “Obamacare” will be considered a near-perfect reflection of the heartfelt desires of the American people. Because IOKIYAR.
Get ready for a lot more of this kind of talk in the coming months. *sigh*
UPDATE: There’s an amusing back-and-forth on Twitter between Battenfield and Ben Smith at Politico. Apparently, Joe was joking all along – he just forgot to let the Herald’s front-page editors in on the gag.
joebattenfeld
Apparently @benpolitico doesn’t have sense of humor. “Obsequious” Brown supporter? Ben, ask Scott if that is truebenpolitico
@joebattenfeld I was putting you in the enthusiastic category … just making general point that all these guys are hearing they should run.joebattenfeld
I would also say to @benpolitico – Brown’s chances of running about same as John Edwards staying in pres. race in 2007
Funny to me that Ben Smith is trying to back away from his post. He did, in fact, call Battenfeld “obsequious” as well as “enthusiastic.” Furthermore, he referred to Battenfeld’s column as “reasoned analysis,” which sounds a tad sarcastic to me – particularly when he concludes his post by observing, “And with arguments like those….” But maybe Ben was joking too. Ah, the comedy never stops.
or at least the folks at the Herald clued him in on a better approach to get more people reading. Until today, he hasn’t done much.
Who had his last day as a talk show host.
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p>Not that many intellectually dishonest, hard line conservatives out there to buy advertisers products. What was that honey stuff Finneran was selling?
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p>The most articulate of them do the talk shows and get on their computers at 5:00 am to insert comments in the various newspapers.
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p>And they are all by themselves connecting with each other through Howie or recommending their colleagues’s comments. Sort of sad actually.
that Joe Sciacca is sure editing a fine product. It didn’t take him long to sink into the Rupert Murdoch swamp.
Please run, Scott, run! And take Sarah along for the ride in your pick-up truck! She will look great in a barncoat. You can do Rte. 66 together and share intellectual conversations together on the pressing issues of the day.
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p>Could Democrats be lucky enough to have the GOP choose a Brown-Palin ticket?! No, but we can dream can’t we?
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p>Encourage this ticket in every discussion…keep hope alive!
On a Brown-Palin ticket, Palin would be the experienced one.
Yes, Christine O’Donnell lost, but Rand Paul won. And sadly, there are more states like Kentucky out there than states like Delaware.
say that Palin is not qualified to be President. I honestly do not remember any other serious candidate for the Presidency ever getting numbers like that.
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p>In that way, Brown is more dangerous. As I can’t “think like a Republican”, I figured one way to look at it was to try to see a mirror image Scott Brown.
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p>The closest parallel on the Democratic side to Brown that I can think of is John Edwards (in 2002). He was considered a star because he was described as good looking and he had won Jesse Helm’s Senate seat in 1998. At the parallel point in time with regards to 2004, he had been a Senator for almost 3 years, instead of Brown’s one – but he had no prior public service. Like Brown, Edwards had nothing he can be remembered for from his Senate career. (Obama in a shorter time had serious legislation – on ethics reform and nuclear proliferation.) Two other similarities is that neither Edwards or Brown stood to improve their chances of becoming President by serious work as Senators and both faced significant risk of losing their Senate re-elections.
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p>One stumbling block to either should have been that they were at the extreme (towards the center) of their party. Edwards, contrary to his remake in 2008, was an extremely conservative Democrat. Brown’s pre Senate positions place him as an extremely liberal Republican. But, that ignores that neither seems to have a deep rooted ideological vision. I know that people on the left blogospere ignored Edwards’ conservative record – maybe because he represented North Carolina – and accepted that what he said he was when running was genuine. I would bet that the Republicans could do the same for Brown – unless the tea party people feel he betrayed their trust.
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p>Now there are some major differences – Edwards is more articulate. On our side, Edwards, in spite of a media which really pushed for him in 2004, did not convince primary voters to give him the nomination.
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p>But, one advantage that Brown would have over Edwards is that the Republican party has a ready made platform for its “leader” (frontman ?) to stand on and an echo chamber to push him/her and to attack opponents.
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p>I still can’t see a major party electing as vacuous a nominee as either Brown or Palin, but they did nominate George W Bush, who is still showing how completely empty suit he really is by saying the worst moment of his Presidency was .. when Kanye West attacked him as not “liking black people”.
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p>Given that history, I wouldn’t completely rule out Brown if the economy improves and the party needs a long shot – and then only if the tea party forgives him.
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I know this may sound crazy but brown’s path is similar to another state senator that won a senate seat and decided to run for president shortly thereafter…
that no one can be experienced for the POTUS job, and that service as a state senator followed by an incomplete term as US Senator was more than enough experience.
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p>Or was that only in 2007?