Today’s Globe reports that, in the last couple of days of the Senate race, Scott Brown pulled in nearly half a million dollars from the high-flying finance industry — the vast majority from out of state.
In addition to financial giants such as Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley, the donors included executives from hedge funds and private equity firms.
Now, why would they do that? Because they liked his truck? Because they think it’s important that suspects in terrorism cases be tried in military tribunals? Well, no.
Martin Gruss, owner of a West Palm Beach, Fla., investment firm, said he gave $2,400 to Brown because he vehemently disagrees with the policies being pursued by Obama and his economic aides. “They have no real understanding of the business implications of their actions,” he said, adding that limits on trading securities would undermine the position of the United States as the world’s financial capital…. “People like me are scouring the country for conservative candidates,” said John Mumford, a California venture capitalist who gave the maximum $2,400 contribution to Brown four days before the election. “What’s going on in Washington is against everything I believe in, which is small government, balanced budgets, and support for free enterprise.” … “Basically, I thought making him the 41st Republican vote in the Senate would prevent some really terrible legislation from getting through, [California securities analyst Richard Hillman] said.
So here is Brown’s big chance: vote with Obama on financial regulation, and specifically on the consumer protection agency.
If Brown wants any shot at reelection in 2012, he needs to pick a couple of high-profile issues on which he goes with Obama and bucks the Republican leadership. It can’t be health care, since he campaigned on voting “no.” Ditto with the bank tax, plus that’s relatively short money. (And I personally love the idea of Republicans blocking a tax on the bailout recipients.)
But on the overhaul of financial regulations, and on the consumer protection agency (issues on which Brown took no specific position during the campaign), Brown has a huge opportunity. It’s at least a three-fer. By backing Obama on this, Brown can (1) prove that he actually is an “independent” thinker who won’t mindlessly do the GOP leadership’s bidding; (2) score an enormous public relations coup that keeps his name on the front pages for a good while longer; and (3) prove that he can’t be bought by a bunch of out-of-state fatcats. Oh, and he can also help prevent the economy from melting down again. So it’s a four-fer.
Maybe it’s even a five-fer, because I don’t think the tea partiers who helped him win are all that psyched about the finance industry. It’s hard for me to imagine that, if Brown votes for broader consumer protections from the douchebags who melted down the economy last time, he’ll be abandoned by the righty grassroots as a result. Switching his vote on health care? Yeah, probably. But on this? I’d think they might actually like it.
started using national Republican talking points before the ink on his filing for the Senatorial seat. How can you think he’ll be independent from them? He’s continued supporting their positions.
Everyone pretty much assumes that, notwithstanding what he said during the campaign and even after it, he’s going to do what Mitch McConnell wants him to do on everything that matters. If he does that, he likely won’t win reelection in 2012. But if he doesn’t do that, he increases his own power immensely and makes himself an important national figure. It’s up to him.
I personally think that Brown will be very, very tough to beat in ’12, regardless of what he does in DC in the meantime. Here’s why:
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p>-Brown ran, and won, not as a Weldian/Bakerish moderate, but as a fire breathing conservative populist. Heck, the guy has perhaps the most conservative voting record in the entire state senate! The reason everyone expects him to be in lockstep with McConnell et al is because that is how he campaigned! It’s not like he ran posing as a moderate.
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p>-In fact, Brown is probably the most conservative senator we’ve elected in generations; Ed Brooke, Leverett Staltonstall, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr were all moderates during there era, and would probably be considered liberals today. He won despite (probably not because) of this.
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p>This is why I don’t think Brown neccicarily has to tack to the left in order to secure his seat. Sure, a lot will change in two years. I just think that a Brown in in ’10 was a whole lot harder to pull off than a Brown win in ’12. The hardest part is behind him.
and being a Weld-like Republican are two very different things.
I disagree with your conclusion. Especially if he votes as a “lockstep Republican” for the next two years, he’s a really easy target in 2012 — and this time no one will be asleep at the switch. He will be atop the list of GOP Senators to be knocked off, which means tons of money, and which (he said optimistically) means a really strong Democratic field.
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p>Also, this I think is inaccurate:
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p>Not a moderate, maybe, but certainly as an independent thinker. Heck, he just told McConnell that he couldn’t necessarily count on his vote. That’s the image he ran on. He has to make that real, or he’s got big problems.
Mitch will “allow” him to vote to keep a good record but I’m sure he will pressure him when he really needs his vote. I think he’s in good shape for “12” but I agree that he needs to show people in MA that he’s not a “rubber-stamp” Republican.
… as a “…fire breathing conservative populist.”, but he also did it by repeating the word ‘independent’ over and over again while not once saying ‘Republican’, ‘GOP’, or ever ‘conservative’.
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p>I think he may be able to win without tacking left, but the ‘independent’ thing will definitely (rightfully) be thrown back in his face and I do think it will be a factor in the 2012 campaign.
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p>While his positions were not ‘Weldian’, he ran from the conservative Republican label. If he proves to vote like a conservative Republican, he’ll get labeled that way and while he (unfortunately?, inexplicably?) successfully ran away from the label in this campaign, I don’t think he will in his future campaign if his voting record proves the label true.
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p>..If the Senator-elect really thinks that Massachusetts is chock-a-block full of closeted Republicans AND that these closet cases represent, as is believed by many on the GOP side… and their co-religionist allies…, ‘true America’, then there is no incentive for him to move to the center (itself, rather to the right, when seen in historical context…)
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p>So your thinking is predicated upon the notion that re-election in 2012 will be problematic for him unless he goes all bi-partisan. James Fallows elucidates why the converse might be true…
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p>I think the question hinges on what Scott Brown understands about the issues. It’s clear that, wrt HCR, he’s bought the GOP line, lock stock and barrel, so it’s hard to credit that he’s studied the issue in depth, but only relied on trusted narratives to frame his thinking. There’s no reason to think that he won’t do this wrt finance regulation.
As far ago as September 2009, he said this about more financial regulation:
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p>Since then, he has repeated his opposition on several occasions. The DSCC has now highlighted Brown’s opposition with an ad campaign: http://www.dscc.org/news?type=…
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p>Though I agree that this presents a good opportunity for Brown (at least on “financial regulations” generally but nor so much for the apparently-doomed CFPA), I hold out little hope that this leopard will change its stripes.
He’s not the only one receiving
bribescontributions. He’s just one small potato among the spuds.<
p>There will be enough votes to either cancel any changes or flavor the bill in such a way as to make it another “fox-guards-henhouse” catastrophe. The elected take the money from their contributors and vote as told. Like opium addicts getting the last puff before dying, there will be a tragic end.
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p>While our state government spends time on terrorist and natural disaster planning, would time better be spent on dealing with financial and social collapse?
Who gave Howland Lew’s password to Lasthorseman?
never mind those of other people.
Just waiting on the black helicopters and or the carbon footprint depression.
Even Obama’s optimism is for a dismal future. The accepted idea that we can pay off the debt through unbridled inflation is just a tax on savings and retirement. There is always a bursting point. We are showing ourselves as no wiser than the government of Zimbabwe.
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p>When a collapse comes, having continuation plans in place rather than bands of roaming thugs looking for food and shelter is probably not the best thing. We should learn from the Soviet Union collapse.
Small government?
Free enterprise?
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p>If he really believed those things in their purest form shouldn’t he be opposed (which I doubt he is) to the bailouts and other forms of corporate welfare.
Had Brown come close he would have still become a national Republican figure, a frontrunner for several state wide seats, or he could have gone on to sell books and become a popular media personality. Instead he is essentially a flash in the pan political figure. His re-election began the day he was elected, he has less than a year and a half to fully establish himself as a credible Senator and unlike last time when prominent Democrats (Kennedy relatives, Markey, Meehan, Frank, Tierney, Delahunt, Gabrielli, a possibly Treasurer Grossman and Galvin) sat out the election this time they will be ready and with a longer time frame will have larger cash reserves and can build up state wide name recognition. Frankly, and I love Capuano, but the crop of candidates that stepped up were nowhere near the caliber of candidates that one would have expected to jump at the opportunity to take a Senate seat. Meehan and Markey have been waiting for decades. Tierney and McGovern are up and coming progressives from more competitive parts of the state.
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p>If Brown loses it is unlikely that a Senator with such a small amount of time in the Senate can become a liberating conservative hero, it is unlikely his loss can become a defeat. So Brown is stuck with two poor choices.
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p>Either tack to the middle and risk alienating the national audience and exposure from the fringe right wing currently attracted to his candidacy or tack to the far right and become a martyr and lose the Senate seat for dubious political gains (just ask Mitt Romney).
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p>12′ will be a much harder environment for Brown. He will be running against Obama’s coattails (there is absolutely no reason to suspect Obama won’t win big in MA, even if he is a tarnished brand by 2012), against a much more skilled and financed Democratic nominee (fingers crossed presumption) who will have more time to define his/herself to the voters, and he will have a voting record to pick apart and attack. The scores of independents attracted to his candidacy will be alienated by his conservative votes, or alternatively his national financial backers will be alienated by his tack to the middle. He is really in a horrible place politically-that said he is the best political talent MA has seen since Deval Patrick (in terms of political upsets and quickly gaining millions of votes) and could either disappoint as Patrick did or continue to surprise MA political observers by his tenacity and survival skills.
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p>Oh and his potential prez ambitions? he can’t run in 12′, both because its too soon and he can’t take on Romney, and he won’t run in 16′ either b/c he is out of work or too moderate for the GOP base.
The Scott vote is less about Scott and more about a general vote against the status quo and the Obama plan to roll the US into totalitarian globalized Marxism. The big thing to remember here is that Obama was installed to end America not save it. That being said any vote for any candidate which makes it harder for government to accomplish anything is a good thing.