Blue Mass Group

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Brown: Warren “Paid Actors” in Asbestos Ads [updated]

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Can I use the word now, please?

Fake outrage abounded at my use of the phrase “douchebag liar” when referring to Scott Brown. But seriously. The term 100% applies. Case in point:

During a question and answer session, one firefighter commented that both campaigns are publishing advertisements featuring family members of victims of asbestos-related illness. He asked Brown how Warren gets the victims’ family members to go on her commercial.

“A lot of them are paid,” Brown said. “We hear that maybe they pay actors. Listen, you can get surrogates and go out and say your thing. We have regular people in our commercials. No one is paid. They are regular folks that reach out to us and say she is full of it.”

One of the ads, entitled “Ashamed,” features Kingston resident Ginny Jackson, whose husband died of mesothelioma after working at a Quincy shipyard that was filled with asbestos.

Reached through the Warren campaign, Jackson responded to Brown’s comments, calling them offensive.

“A lot of them are paid…We hear that maybe they pay actors.” What. A. Jerk.

This is ironic coming from a campaign which is paying black people – including some who are homeless – what “works out to” $8/hour to show up to rallies in Brown tee-shirts, don’t you think??

I’ll be working a canvass this weekend. You should be too. Only a few weeks left, a very short time for more voter ID and then things switch to GOTV, for which ALL HANDS ON DECK is an understatement. Go. Get. To. Work.

(Cross posted and modified. Link H/T @elizabethforma Twitter feed.)

UPDATE (by David): Scott Brown has issued an apology:

“It was wrong for me to have jumped to those conclusions and I apologize to those I offended,” Brown said in a statement.

What I don’t understand is how he says something so offensive with such assurance, and then apologizes for jumping to “those conclusions.”  What was the basis of his saying what he said in the first place?  Is it that hard for him to believe that someone whose loved one suffered from asbestos poisoning might not agree with him?  Talk about drinking your own Kool-Aid.

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Comments

  1. these tactics do not appear to be working. Brown’s favorability rating has plummeted to 46% approval, 45% disapproval. Just last month, his favorability was 55% approve-34% disapprove.

    Think about that. He went from a net +21 favorability to a +1 favorability. In a month. That is astonishing.

    I think the Warren campaign has been very effective in pointing out the real Brown voting record, and I give her a ton of credit for an outstanding debate in Springfield. But I also believe at least some of this decline is self-inflicted. If your main asset is a carefully crafted image as a bipartisany nice guy, it’s hard to see how a vicious attack campaign helps that. Undecideds have been paying more attention as the election gets closer, and apparently they don’t like what they see.

  2. Atta boy Scottie. You said this race is about “Character”. We’re learning more about your morally bankrupt character with each new day.

    • even if it gets thrown out for insufficient evidence. A great way for these families to retaliate for Scott’s accusing them of profiting from the death of a loved one.

  3. “Let Scott Brown tell me to my face that I am nothing but a paid actor, and I’ll set him straight on what it was like to watch my father suffocate to death,” ~ John F. English

    Is there a lower form of life than Scott Brown?

  4. At least he finally came out with a short apology:
    >>>”It was wrong for me to have jumped to those conclusions and I apologize to those I offended,” Brown said, according to the apology statement.

    That being said, is there a chance the Globe or someone bigger than the Taunton Gazette will pick this up? Seriously, accusing them of being paid actors is sickening, and more people should know about it. I’m disgusted, but not surprised.

    • Glad it’s getting some traction. I enjoyed the coincidental airing of the Elizabeth Warren “Ashamed” ad in the commercial break immediately following the story.

      I don’t know why this story infuriates me, I should be happy that he’s shooting himself in the foot, but don’t drag down innocent people into your muck!

      • we circle back to my use of douchbag…I TOLD you guys! I would have said worse, I was so angry at him for his abuse of asbestos victims in the manner he has, and he has just proven further how crass and belittling he is, not just to victims of illness, but to voters.

    • Globe

      He apologizes to those he offended? Kind of half-assed if you asked me. All he had to do is take out the last 4 words and it would have sounded sincere. Can’t even do that.

  5. Too little, too late Scotto.

    What I don’t understand is how he says something so offensive with such assurance, and then apologizes for jumping to “those conclusions.”

    Character. It speaks to character. He’s an overgrown frat boy in way over his head and it shows.

    • If he is truly sorry and realizes the shouldn’t have jumped to those conclusions then he should pull his ads down.
      Maybe EW should demand it.

      • Apparently whatever Warren is not doing is working – him not pulling the ads might be the best thing to happen to her campaign, if the polls on his favorability are correct.

        At yesterday’s event, a reporter tried to get Warren to state Brown should give back the donations from Dow Chemical employees etc, like he did with the Travelers right before his nasty attacks there. Typical MSM bullshit. Why is it Warren’s job to tell Brown what his morals should be in running his campaign? Freaking waste of a question.

        And that was not the only lame media question either. Sometimes I do not lament the troubles the press is going through, they bring it on themselves…

  6. Devin says:

    Warren’s lead is partially attributable to Brown’s approvals, which have fallen to 46/45. Earlier this year, his approval rating was over 60%. When it became clear that Warren was a formidable opponent who was not going to be swatted away easily, he stopped running positive ads about himself which attempted to reinforce his image of a regular guy and started running nasty ads mocking Warren’s heritage before pivoting to a line of attack which focuses on blatant lies about Warren’s work on asbestos cases. As soon as he went negative, his approvals began to decline and the trendline we’re now seeing with Warren ascending began.

    Massachusetts was willing to possibly re-elect a Republican to the senate as long as he cultivated an image of a pleasant regular guy who worked in a bipartisan manner. We’re not willing to re-elect a Republican who’s a lying jerk. It’s as simple as that.

    This is not a bad epitaph on Brown’s campaign.

  7. New article on this at the Nation blog:

    http://www.thenation.com/blog/170617/group-running-racist-obama-phone-ad-has-close-ties-congressional-republicans

    From the article, “The Prosper Group boasts on its website that it helped Senator Scott Brown raise $12 million online”

    So you have to ask, is the Senator’s campaign spreading these facebook messages deliberately in MA, targeting mostly white communities in Massachusetts, and then delivering fundraising ads for Brown to these voters after they are subjected to emotional and subtly racist messages?

    For more, search on Twitter. This story is exploding right now.
    http://twitter.com/search?q=obamaphone

  8. Brown’s innuendo may also reflect the coaching that he is receiving from Karl Rove’s organization — which raises the question, again, of just how independent this “moderate” would be of the immoderate forces that have taken control of his party.

    He has apologized, of course, but after the mud slips off the wall, there is still the stain.

    • Thesis is that the epistemic closure on the Right not only makes conservatives incapable of governing; it’s beginning to make them incapable of campaigning as well.

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