The Great Brown Hope

Much to my surprise, I woke to find that Senator Scott Brown is… wait for it… just another politician. According the the Boston Globe:

Senator Scott Brown says he will fight to fund a multibillion-dollar weapons program that could generate jobs in Massachusetts but that the Pentagon insists it does not need, sparking criticism that Brown is breaking his campaign vow to rein in wasteful spending.

Why is it that when wasteful spending takes place in one’s own state, that it is no longer wasteful spending? If the Pentagon says, we don’t need something, but certain members of Congress say we do, who shall we believe? William J. Lynn, the deputy secretary of defense, told Congress:

“We have reached a critical point in this debate where spending more money on a second engine for the [F-35] is unnecessary, wasteful, and simply diverts precious modernization funds from more pressing [military] priorities.’’

So much for fiscal responsibility…

Scott Brown Talks To Barbara Walters

Part1

Part 2

In this interview aired on January 31, 2010 on ‘This Week,’ Massachusetts Sen.-Elect Scott Brown speaks with Barbara Walters.

Three Ways to Spin It

 Seismic.  That’s the best word I heard Tuesday night listening to coverage of the special election in Massachusetts.  There is the obvious explanation, there is the not so obvious, and there is the downright simple and quite boring.

 A Referendum on Obama – The Obvious

 Not just Healthcare, but the whole agenda.  The buying of votes for millions in pork, the deals for labor unions so they avoid taxes that the rest of the middle class has to pay, and the complete and utter lack of transparency into every aspect of governing.  There is such a disconnect between the rhetoric and the actions that it’s seems like there is a parallel universe the administration operates in where they believe their own stuff.

Door Number 3 – The Not so Obvious

Populist anger.  Coakley represented the incumbent and stood in front of the tea party train.  Never has the door been so wide open for the introduction of a third party.  Anyone with the label Republican or Democrat has a target on his or her head. Americans are just pissed at the process in its entirety.  Lou Dobbs, Sarah Palin, whoever the third party candidate will be in the next Presidential election, they will either be the first to win the White House, or the reason somebody else lost.  Either way, that candidate will have a huge impact.

The End of Camelot – The Simple

 Massachusetts is a blue-collar state.  Notwithstanding the liberal bastion of Harvard, Massachusetts is a paradox.  This is the state that originated “the hockey Mom”, not Alaska, and considers Cape Cod an exotic beach destination.  I know Massachusetts, I lived there.  Massachusetts loved that Ted Kennedy was their Senator; it brought prestige to a small state.  They loved that the Kennedy’s, instead of becoming captains of industry, chose to serve.  They chose to fight for the common man.  But the people of Massachusetts and the Kennedy’s shared little in common aside from geography.  So Massachusetts reverted back to its core and elected a blue collar, pick up truck driving state senator, a man of the people.  No referendum, no message to DC. They just liked the guy, he was one of them.

 Whichever version of the truth you buy, and all three might be true, its going to be an interesting 10 months till the mid term elections, and an interesting several weeks in Washington, DC.

 What do you think?

 Guest Blogger – Jeff Hine

Episode 65 – Brown MASSacres Coakley, But it’s About Change, Not Health Care or the GOP

Counter to the conventional wisdom, Glenn and Jeff explain why Sen. Scott Brown’s victory in the Massachusetts Senate Race is about understanding the dynamics of change in the 2008 election and how that relates to the economy. Seeing this race as a victory for the GOP and a rejection of the President’s Health Care plan would be a tragic mistake, and Jeff explains why Democrats should run and embrace health care reform (real health care reform) while Republicans should reach to the middle politically and focus on jobs. Glenn, a Massachusetts resident, also explains the dynamics and idiosyncrasies of Massachusetts politics and how that impacted the Senate Special Election. Jeff takes on the Coakley campaign, based on his personal experiences working with them and drawing on his experience running a Senate campaign, for how it unknowingly positioned itself as the institutional candidate and defined itself as the heir apparent to Sen. Kennedy, and did not engage in Rule 1 of politics: define or be defined. The also explain why Steve Pagliuca or Alan Khezi would have been better candidates and more likely to win a race against Scott Brown. Finally, before Brown becomes the new brand of the Republican Party, Jeff explains why he shouldn’t get too far away from his pickup truck and he should reject all offers to become the GOP’s Poster Boy, and bear down to quietly work on behalf of the people of Massachusetts, or find himself out of a job in 2012, when he has to run again…with a presidential candidate on the top of the ticket. Always engaging and informative, it’s PoliTalk, your weekly political podcast.

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Scott Brown Wins Senate Seat

Senator-elect Scott Brown

Tune into this week’s PoliTalk for all the details! Show should be up by Thursday.

I think John Stewart nicely summed up what is going on …

“See it’s not that the Republicans are playing chess and the Democrats are playing checkers. No. It’s that the Republicans are playing chess, and the Democrats are in the nurses office because they glued their balls to their thigh. Again.”

Dems Running Scared on Mass Senate Race

As if the Democrats did not have too much to worry about with a weak 60 votes in the Senate, Massachusetts may be delivering the final blow to any further passage of the Healthcare bill by electing a Republican Senator… the first in a very long time. The President is even concerned about this. In the waning days of the election, President Obama gave the okay for his campaign machine to support the embattled Democratic Senate candidate Martha Coakley in what may be too little too late. Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown’s poll numbers have surged in the past few weeks and momentum is on his side.

In a hope to rally the Obama organizing machine, Obama’s political organization, Organizing for America has already tapped its massive technology assets to blast text messages to cell phones of their legions.

Here are the two messages sent so far:

Sent on January 14, 2010 – Help Obama elect Martha Coakley. Reply MC to volunteer, or visit http://bit.ly/MA_Vol -Organizing for America
Sent on January 15, 2010 – Scott Brown would put big banks first–we must speak out. Join other concerned Bostonians at a rally on the corner of Cambridge St & New Sudbury St at 5pm today

Will the Obama machine make it in time to save the day? Time will tell. However, the last time the Obama machine stepped in to help a failing Georgia Senate Race, it was too little, too late. It’s funny how history has a way of repeating itself.