The other day, Republican State Rep. Dan Winslow posted about the retirement of Judge Nancy Gertner and suggested she run for Congress. In jest, I asked him if he would support her against Scott Brown in 2012. He replied:
Um, no. Funny how so many people bemoan the toxic partisanship of American politics, but we need to step up and support those who bridge the divide. Brown is one of those, perhaps the highest profile one of those, in the country today. We need more people like him to help move America forward. This “I win when you lose” mentality is killing our Nation. It needs to stop. So, on merit (in addition to my “moonlighting” on his behalf), it’s Brown in 2012 for me. But I’d support Judge Gertner against ANY of our current Congressmen.
An interesting response that got me thinking: is Brown actually the high-profile, bipartisan, bridge-builder, so essential to moving America forward, that Rep Winslow describes – or not? Heck, Winslow makes him sound like the second coming of Daniel Webster, who of course helped keep the Union together in 1850 despite personally opposing slavery.
So I started thinking about what a hypothetical, transformative, bipartisan bridge-builder would look like. In my book, such a rare and unifying figure would not only be unafraid to buck their party leadership on the occassional vote: instead they would put themselves at the center of the debate, working to bring both sides together on the hard issues, putting their necks on the line in public by challenging orthodoxy and providing a compelling analysis of what needs to be done on the great issues of the day. They’d be a leader – someone who can shape public opinion not follow its ebbs and flows.
So does Scott Brown meet these criteria? I know he is only still barely a year in office, but at this point, in two words I would have to say “um, no.”
That Brown voted for the repeal of “don’t ask don’t tell”, START, the financial reform bill, a jobs tax credit proposed by Obama – makes him reasonable. But voting is not the same thing as bridge-building. He may take some high-profile votes against his party, but according to the Washington Post he still votes 81% of the time with Mitch McConnell. Mass Democratic Party Chair John Walsh said this about Brown:
he is trying to think his way through how people are going to evaluate his voting record as a document, as opposed to voting how he believes.
I assume Brown believes that discrimination against gay Americans who want to serve their country is wrong. Or maybe he just knew that in a state that allows gays to marry, and given the Pentagon report in favor of repeal, voting for such discrimination would be a sure vote loser.
A truer test of bipartisan leadership would be if Brown were willing to get out front on an issue that he says is a top priority concern – like the deficit. The Simpson-Bowles deficit commission report came out, and what has Brown said about it – nothing. He hasn’t said I want to work with Democrats on real tax reform. He hasn’t said we need to tackle entitlements. With Brown, it is all vague talking points about “broken Washington”, “job-killing taxes” and “out-of-control spending”. Smart politics, maybe. But, leadership, not really.
When push-comes-to-shove, particularly on economic policy, Brown seems to be just another knee-jerk supply-sider who thinks the solution to everything is more tax cuts and less spending – without of course specifying what should be cut.
I recognise it is still early days for Brown in the Senate. The tightrope he has to walk between McConnell and Massachusetts is not an easy one. He is no doubt a skillful politician. That said, Brown was essentially a legislative non-entity on Beacon Hill for years. That lack of profile helped him upset Coakley. He may be an entity now, but it is unclear whether he can become the transformative bridge-builder Winslow seems to think he is.
In part, this is a challenge for New England Republicanism in general. If moderates like Olympia Snowe and Brown can’t influence the direction of their national party and make it a bigger tent then it is now, then what use are they? Snowe is a case in point on failed leadership – at one point working with Obama on health care only to completely abandon the effort and join her right-wing in opposing Mitt Romney’s individual mandate. There is space for a Republican to defend the mandate – Mitt won’t do it, et tu Scotty? More likely, he will fall back on meaningless federalism – e.g. what works in Massachusetts won’t work everywhere. Malarkey.
So bridge or berm? To clarify: a berm refers to the flattened area of a beach slightly above the tide line created by repeated sediment deposits from storm waves. Brown seems more a politician who follows the tides at this point. BERM it is.
Unfortunately, Mr. Brown can act very berm-like indeed but, provided he figures out how to campaign as a bridge, it won’t matter at all.
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p>He is certainly a skilled campaigner although he may be somewhat handicapped by the enormous self-regard that followed upon his election. Per Senator Brown, his election rivals those of Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln in importance.
Did he actually say that?
I don’t put a lot of stock in the “voted XX% of the time with the YY leadership” stat, personally. Given that many of those votes are truly bipartisan efforts to rename a post office or declare National Asparagus Day and whatnot, that’s not very controversial. Add in the fact that such nonsense bills need a few votes to get them through the process of closing debate, etc., I think those numbers of over-inflated.
Now all I have to do is agree with yours!
I wouldn’t criticize the Fishing bill, its the kind of locally focused, keep jobs in MA bill that most of our recent Senators and Congressmen historically forget about because they are too busy trying to save the whales, bring peace to Darfur, and run for higher office. Tip O’Neill famously said all politics is local, and he was right. The nationalizing of the race, by Coakley, and focusing on ‘winning one for Ted and the President’ aka national liberalism, allowed a radical right winger like Brown to get a pass because he appeared far more locally oriented and ‘authentic’. That some of his more rabidly tea sipping supporters are considering a primary challenge is only proof that Brown himself prefers to be a hack and a follower instead of a leader, and that is why he will stick to the Weld playbook with a few right wing votes here and there to keep the base happy. But paradoxically we need to focus on important national issues to progressives that have particularly resonance locally. Health care reform is a non starter since we already have it, ditto gay rights, and social liberalism in general. Focusing instead on the damage Brown has done to Massachusetts and really nominating a compelling candidate on our side who is truly from and evocative of Massachusetts (Murray or Capuano) is paramount. The LG nominee on the most losing ticket in MA Dem party history, some venture capitalist no one has heard of, a left wing egghead whose only connection to the state is his 02138 address and pedigree, or yet another bland public official wanting a promotion is not gonna cut it this year. We need real dynamism in a youthful, authentic, progressive, but local grassroots candidate. Murray has that in spades, so do several State legislators, out of the Congressmen Capuano and Keating seem to have the most credibility there.
Brown has consistently damaged the state by voting against stimulus funds that would help it, voting against investments that would create jobs in MA, voting against unemployment assistance, voting for outsourcing of jobs overseas, etc. Really running an economically populist campaign would rally a lot of the blue collar voters we lost last time.
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p>2. In fact, Brown’s comments on the bill have suggested outright conspiracy, suggesting that “that officials at NOAA and the Commerce Department … ignore the situation or tailor the results of the statement to their own purposes.”
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p>3. The “economic impact” portions are nonsense. The long term health of the fisheries are more important than the jobs of fishermen today. Brown’s attitude is the exact same attitude which resulted in massive unfunded pension funds, massive oil importation, the massive unfunded tax cuts, and dozens of other examples where politicians acted like five year olds “mine! now!” instead of adults interested in long term health and well being.
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p>To me, Brown is half clever, half spineless. It seems to me that he’s exploiting what amount to New England farmers. Tough job, feeding people, family traditions, cultural, shrinking number of jobs, and he sets up a “big bad gov’t” situation where it’s far easier to side with the fishermen than even learn what the current policy is. Bah.
Sen. Tarr has been very active, but if you can only listen to a Democrat, look at the bills that Sarah Peake (D-Provincetown) has filed and her advocacy on the issue.
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p>My personal favorite fisheries foolishness is when they were drawing ‘lines’ in the ocean for determining Canadian and US territories (because fish don’t swim, or anything..). They decided that Cape Cod was an island. See, islands are excluded from calculations and the lines are drawn based on mainland boundaries. The Cape, sticking out in the water, dragged the line too far south. But by declaring it an island (albeit a man-made one) because of the canal, the New England fisheries lost a lot of Georges Bank for fishing. Stuff like that has made them the boogymen.
Keating had a narrow win in a race against one of the most despicable people to ever run in MA. He’s not very dynamic from what I’ve seen. And one of his first votes was to extend the Patriot Act. No thanks. I don’t think Keating has much progressive cred, he’s more in the Lynch camp – an ok Democrat, but we can and should do better.
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p>I know you think social issues and civil liberties are worthless campaign themes, but the Senate nominee should be strong on those issues and not shy away from them. Even though the Dem will likely have Brookline and Cambridge locked down for votes, he or she will still need to fundraise, recruit volunteers, and increase turnout. Those are the issues that can jazz people up – and a campaign does not have to eschew them in favor of local economic concerns. Choice, gay rights, immigration, environmental issues, civil liberties, etc. should be just as important as parochial concerns for members of Congress, especially Senators, because they are often intimately entwined.
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p>Of the Congressmen, I think Capuano, Markey, and McGovern would be best at appealing to working class independents and progressives.
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p>As stomv correctly says about the FISH bill, it’s a short-sited bill without much evidence to support it. It’s exactly the sort of poor work that we should not have from our representatives.
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While Senator Brown has been hectoring us about the national debt
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p>he has filed legislation to make it easier for government contractors to cheat on their taxes.
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p>The story: In 2005, Congress asked the Committee on Taxation to report on options to reduce the tax gap — the difference between what is owed to the federal government in taxes and what is collected.
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p>The number one solution for reducing the gap was to require governments to withhold taxes owed by businesses that provide goods and services to them, among whom tax compliance is well below average (significantly lower, for example, than among employees, who are subject to tax withholding from their wages).
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p>The withholding requirement was enacted in 2006 and was scheduled to take effect this year. The effective date was then delayed until 2012 on the ground that it would further burden state and local governments struggling with the Great Recession.
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p>Now Senator Brown is the champion of repealing the law altogether, even though it would greatly help to reduce the national debt that he appears so concerned about.
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p>This withholding law just ensures that taxpayers who do business with governments pay the taxes they already owe. Repealing the law would ensure that businesses that pay their taxes continue to be at a competitive disadvantage with those that don’t.
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p>If Senator Brown has a better idea to reduce the tax gap, I wish he’d propose it. Otherwise, I wish he’d get on the side of people who play by the rules.
If they are sixty days late making payment, the government must refund the withheld taxes?
will scream bloody micromanagement, and I’m not sure about the causal connection between late payments and tax avoidance, but it’s a far better idea than the Senator’s.
Emphasis mine.
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p>Full text here.
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p>And you may return the fact-check favor sometime.