Brown's Not In It to Win It

Monday's Washington Post contains an article on former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown with some interesting Brown quotes: "Brown faces history, residency questions in NH bid."

Fighting the carpetbagger charge, Scott Brown said something peculiar last weekend outside the Red Arrow Diner in Manchester after meeting and greeting the patrons inside.

"Do I have the best credentials? Probably not. ‘Cause, you know, whatever. But I have long and strong ties to this state."

Let's examine the essence of the statement with a paraphrase: "I probably don't have the best credentials (for the job of U.S. senator)."  Why say something like that?  It's a bit too revealing.

His heart isn't in it.

Brown's candidacy has one true purpose, and that's to force Democrats to spend more money defending Jeanne Shaheen so that there will be less in the pot for other races. He has little chance of actually winning, and he knows it.  The rightly famous Nate Silver, in his new FiveThirtyEight.Com website, rates Brown at a 25% chance likelihood of winning.

"Do I have the best credentials? Probably not. ‘Cause, you know, whatever." "Whatever," indeed.  Please restrain your enthusiasm, Senator.

He also complained about the "carpetbagger" label, saying it was a derogatory term.  Sure it's a derogatory term.  That's its point.  But is it an inaccurate one?  What is it about the word that's so negative?

Here's what he said: "Sen. Shaheen is not from here, but apparently it’s a problem with me?"

Brown's status as being a transplant from Massachusetts isn't what's tarnishing his effort.  It's the recent and sudden transplantation that is.

From Dictionary.Com:

Carpetbagger:

"1. (U.S. History) A Northerner who went to the South after the Civil War and became active in Republican politics, especially so as to profiteer from the unsettled social and political conditions of the area during Reconstruction.

"2. Any opportunistic or exploitive outsider."

Scott Brown ran for reelection as Massachusetts' U.S. Senator in 2012 and lost to Elizabeth Warren.  When John Kerry assumed his current post as Secretary of State, the Senate seat he had held for so long was filled, following a special election.  Scott Brown declined to compete.

Before the 2013 special election in Massachusetts, when former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was known to be leaving her position at State and it would need filling, there were two lead candidates to replace her: Ambassador Susan Rice and then-senator John Kerry.  Susan Rice was pretty much knocked out of her hope to replace Secretary Clinton when Republican Senators McCain, Graham and Ayotte ("The Three Amigos") put her through the wringer over Benghazi.  The conventional wisdom at the time was that the reason the trio targeted Rice was because they knew Kerry wanted State, that Obama would nominate him if Rice was out of the picture, and that Kerry would pass through the Senate.  This was thought to be important to them because then it would open up Kerry's seat to a special election in which Scott Brown might compete and then come back to Congress and swell Republican seats.  It didn't work out that way.

(As an aside: My personal theory is that The Three Amigos are simply buddies with Kerry, all being senators and whatnot, and they were just doing a little behind-the-scenes coordination for their pal.  They took Rice down Kerry's sake, not Brown's, because what kind of gratitude is it that Brown didn't run?)

Brown didn't run for Kerry's vacated Senate seat because he knew he'd lose.  His chances weren't bad because he's "a Republican in Massachusetts"; he was a Republican there when he ran the first time and won.  Nothing changed - nothing, except, that is, that, after Brown's two years in D.C., Massachusetts voters had seen Brown in action and were less than impressed.

It was pretty much a given that Brown's opponent in the special election (if Brown had dared to run) would have been Ed Markey, then a U.S. representative - Ed Markey, the guy who boasted in his TV ads that he had the guts to stand up to the NRA.  Brown didn't have the guts to stand up to him.

So, back to "carpetbagger": After all that, Scott Brown moved to New Hampshire because he's office-shopping.  He thought he might have a chance in New Hampshire when he didn't in Masssachusetts - just two years after he lost in Massachusetts and one year after he declined to run again.

He knows he's a loser in Mass., but he thinks he might not be here.

That's opportunism.  Thinking Jeanne Shaheen might be weakened by Obamacare is exploitative in the context of opportunism.  That's what makes Scott Brown a carpetbagger.  It's not his out-of-state provenance alone.

Jeanne Shaheen moved to New Hampshire in 1973.  She didn't seek office until 1990.  By no means can that be taken as opportunistic transplantation, so it's not "carpetbagging."

But what happened to Brown?  As soon as he showed up with talk of his possible candidacy, rightists picketed his speeches because they think he's too liberal and anti-gun for the Republican Party.

Half the GOP doesn't want him.  No Democrats do.  Independents are skeptical of his sudden leap into the state for a political opening.  Plus, he's not that exciting.  What's his big message? "Jeanne Shaheen votes with the president 99% of time whereas, when I was in the Senate, I voted with him only 70% of the time?"  He's got no real raison d'être as a candidate.

Hence the downbeat Brown.

K Street awaits when this is over.  Brown will do his duty like a good soldier for the party and bleed the Democrats a little, but he won't win, " 'cause, you know, whatever."  Wow.

Smile, Senator.  Don't look so glum.  At least some people won't scorn you for not trying one last time, even if you don't really try all that hard.