Brown’s Easy Demeanor Appeals to Voters
Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2010 10:28 am
Candidate’s energy, populist message and old truck resonates with public
Tuesday's upset Republican victory in Massachusetts may well have less to do with ideology and more to do with old-fashioned retail politics: Scott Brown was a charismatic candidate with a old truck, an intriguing narrative and a promise to shake every voter's hand.
He is considered one of the more conservative members of the Democratic-led Massachusetts Senate, but he may be hard to pigeonhole in Washington. He supports abortion rights but opposes the procedure some call partial-birth abortion. He supported Massachusetts's health-care reform in 2006, which resembles the U.S. Senate bill passed before Christmas. Yet he has pledged to give Republicans their 41st vote in the Senate to thwart the bill. Brown says it's too costly and will interfere with what Massachusetts already has in place.
Brown opposes same-sex marriage, and one of his big political missteps occurred eight years ago, when he said it was "just not normal" for his Democratic predecessor in the state Senate, a lesbian, to have a baby with her partner. That comment was said to have knocked him off the short list as a potential gubernatorial running mate with Republican Jane Swift. Brown is a lieutenant colonel with the Massachusetts National Guard and a member of the Judge Advocate General's Corps. He supported President Obama's troop escalation in Afghanistan, but has never been deployed to a war zone.
Voters have been drawn to Brown's energetic demeanor and populist message of cutting taxes and reining in the federal government. They interact with him as if he were an old friend trying to get them out of a financial jam. Brown's GMC truck, with nearly 200,000 miles on the odometer, became the symbol of his regular-guy campaign, but experts say he also ran a smart net-roots effort, mobilizing conservative activists in the same way President Obama energized liberals in 2008.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34949906/ns ... gton_post/
Tuesday's upset Republican victory in Massachusetts may well have less to do with ideology and more to do with old-fashioned retail politics: Scott Brown was a charismatic candidate with a old truck, an intriguing narrative and a promise to shake every voter's hand.
He is considered one of the more conservative members of the Democratic-led Massachusetts Senate, but he may be hard to pigeonhole in Washington. He supports abortion rights but opposes the procedure some call partial-birth abortion. He supported Massachusetts's health-care reform in 2006, which resembles the U.S. Senate bill passed before Christmas. Yet he has pledged to give Republicans their 41st vote in the Senate to thwart the bill. Brown says it's too costly and will interfere with what Massachusetts already has in place.
Brown opposes same-sex marriage, and one of his big political missteps occurred eight years ago, when he said it was "just not normal" for his Democratic predecessor in the state Senate, a lesbian, to have a baby with her partner. That comment was said to have knocked him off the short list as a potential gubernatorial running mate with Republican Jane Swift. Brown is a lieutenant colonel with the Massachusetts National Guard and a member of the Judge Advocate General's Corps. He supported President Obama's troop escalation in Afghanistan, but has never been deployed to a war zone.
Voters have been drawn to Brown's energetic demeanor and populist message of cutting taxes and reining in the federal government. They interact with him as if he were an old friend trying to get them out of a financial jam. Brown's GMC truck, with nearly 200,000 miles on the odometer, became the symbol of his regular-guy campaign, but experts say he also ran a smart net-roots effort, mobilizing conservative activists in the same way President Obama energized liberals in 2008.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34949906/ns ... gton_post/
