Election 2012: Sen. Scott Brown: 20% Moderate, 80% Kochhead

by Sunnyjane

After scrutinizing the disgusting performances of several outrageously inept and deliberately obstructive Tea Partiers currently taking up valuable space in the House of Representatives, it is time to perform a full-body cavity search on one member of the Senate who needs to be sent home with the ignominy he so richly deserves: Scott Brown of Massachusetts.  

In a special election held in January 2010, Brown won the senate seat left vacant by the death of Ted Kennedy in August 2009.  The back-story of how a Republican won the seat held for forty-seven years by Kennedy in a traditionally Blue State was a bellwether for the time.  It was 2010, a time of Tea Party rage; Koch Brothers money; and Sarah Palin's desperate attempt to redeem herself after her first major endorsement of New York GOPer Doug Hoffman failed so miserably. All of this meddling was given succor by an apathetic or disappointed voting population (they had expected the President to change the world in eleven months) that couldn't decide whether to vote or skip the whole thing and go to the dentist on election day. They must have chosen the thrill-of-the-drill: only fifty-four percent showed up at Massachusetts polling stations on January 19, compared with seventy-three percent who exercised their right to vote in 2008.

Political ‘Chameleonology’ 101

Like his close lizard relative of the tropics, Brown has the ability to change his colors according to the situation and as the mood strikes him.  Aided by the Chamaeleonidae's super-fast tongue, he's able to talk his way into more prism shades than can be found in a toddler's Easter basket. He can be a moderate pink Republican in the Massachusetts senate, a Nancy-Reagan-red Tea Party darling during an election, and even take on a pinkish-pale-blue hue when trying to cozy up to the Democrats on Capitol Hill, or the current-and-future resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Amazing, isn't it?

Cosmopolitan for College, Kochs for Capitol Hill

Money was very important to Scott Brown when he showed his ass abs in Cosmo to get money for college in 1982. (I guess he was too busy studying to tour with the Chippendales and obviously didn't have a sweet stock portfolio like Ann and Mitt when they were in college learning hard lessons about life as impoverished students.)

As part of Palin's penalty for not securing adequate Tea Party support for Greg Hoffman in a Congressional district that had been Republican for 136 years, she was sent out on the stump to make damn sure that the tri-cornered-hatters were gonna line up behind a real conservative to get Scott Brown in the United States Senate, you betcha!   The Tea Party held its nose (knowing that Brown was not their idea of a true conservative) and eventually ponied up $300,000. The upshot of that whole thing, of course, was that after winning the election, Brown dumped the Tea Party and refused to acknowledge that he had ever spoken to Palin, even after she called on election night to congratulate him. I've never had any contact with Sarah Palin, he told Barbara Walters. Palin didn't take being kicked to the curb very well, and by August of 2010 she was sneering at Brown on Fox News for not being a hardcore constitutional conservative.   (Hey, Sarah, you knew that at the time, right? Oh, you didn't? Couldn't Google Scott Brown Massachusetts, huh?)

As for the Tea Party owners, Scott Brown met David Koch at an event in March 2011 and begged for more money for this election cycle. Caught on video, the conversation went thus:
BROWN: Your support during the [2010] election, it meant a ton. It made a difference and I can certainly use it again. Obviously, the –
KOCH: When are you running for the next term?
BROWN: ’12.
KOCH: Oh, okay.
BROWN: I’m in the cycle right now. We’re already banging away.

Any lingering doubts about where Scott Brown's allegiance lies?  


For the Record

A quick look at the Senator's voting history reveals exactly what "color" he has been and the kind of anti-middle-income legislating we can expect from him should he be re-elected in November.

Taxpayer Protection Pledge:  The only lawmaker from Massachusetts to do so, Brown sold himself to political-extortionist Grover Norquist and signed the anti-American piece of crap designed to protect the One Percent from paying their fair share to support the needs of ALL Americans. 

Tax on Banks: He was against a proposed multi-billion dollar tax on banks to recoup bailout money and prescribing of bank executive compensation, saying that he was opposed to higher taxes, especially in the midst of a severe recession. 

Financial Institutions Protections:  During the Wall Street regulatory overhaul negotiations in the summer of 2010, financial institutions poured $140,000 of cold hard cash into Brown's coffers as he used the leverage of his swing vote to win key concessions sought by firms inside and outside of Massachusetts. 

Affordable Care Act:  While he staunchly supported the Massachusetts health care act, he refused to  support the national ACA, saying that this plan is financially unsound and vowing to be the 41st vote to filibuster the bill in the Senate.

Clean Air Act:  All we need to know about this particular issue is that the Kochs spent $500 million supporting candidates who would keep us from having clean air, and one of the grateful recipients of their largess was Scott Brown, who supported the effort to put profits for Big Oil before the health and welfare of American citizens.   Who needs clean air, anyhow?

The Massachusetts Connection

It should come as no shock that Scott Brown is tight as an August tick on a dog's neck with former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, under whom he served as a state legislator.   Although Brown has a way to go before he becomes as adept at changing his colors, he's working on it.  Who can forget one of Romney's most infamous quick-change-artist lines when he's looking for Tea Party support: I'm just as conservative as I was four years ago. Maybe more so. And yet, as Which Mitt reports, Romney stated (with a straight face, I might add) in 2002 when he needed Independent support, that: I think people recognize that I'm not a partisan Republican, that I'm someone who is moderate, and that my views are progressive.

Riiiight.


End Note