I’m often frustrated with Boston Globe editorials because they avoid strong stands and take both sides of every issue. So I thought it was interesting that its endorsement of Elizabeth Warren was so unstinting, with little good to say about Sen. Scott Brown.
After recounting Brown’s unproven assertions that Warren took professional advantage of her undocumented Native American ancestry, the editorial includes this very tough line: “By campaigning on his personality, rather than his abilities, Brown seems to be bucking for his own form of affirmative action.”
No question the Globe was going to endorse Warren. But I wonder if it might have been a little more nuanced if Brown hadn’t taken a torch to his nice-guy image.
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Brown is mainly a political opportunist, certainly not any kind of principled politician we could have in Washington. Brown was in the state House of Representatives who then took advantage of a special election to replace Sen. Cheryl Jacques, and then took advantage of a special election to replace Sen. Ted Kennedy.
As a U.S. senator Brown voted against the Affordable Care Act, which was the main reason why many people voted for him. He certainly didn’t oppose it out of any principled stand against government-controlled medical care, given that he supported RomneyCare here. And Brown voted for the Dodd-Frank bill, which will create a hundred new federal bureaucracies and probably slow down the economy even further and contribute to higher unemployment rates. One can speculate as to why Brown would vote for Dodd-Frank, given that at the time of that vote the main architect for Dodd-Frank, Elizabeth Warren, was already mentioned as a potential rival for his senate seat.
I am not surprised that the Globe would endorse Warren. She has as much to offer as Brown, in terms of promoting freedom and integrity.
“As a U.S. senator Brown voted against the Affordable Care Act, which was the main reason why many people voted for him.”
That was the common interpretation of what happened, but exit polls shows that voters who considered the ACA the most important issue in the ’10 special election favored Coakley. With that in mind, it’s possible that Brown misread his mandate, a common folly in politics. Instead of being elected to vote against the ACA but occasionally cross party lines, it’s possible – perhaps likely- that he was elected simply because he was more likable and ran a significantly better campaign than Coakley. If that is the case, it makes his drop in popularity much easier to understand. He’s taken a torch to his own nice guy image, while doing a miserable job explaining his less popular votes (equal pay, Kagan nomination, student loan interest rate hike), all the while continuing to tout himself as an “independent voice.”