Our political Quote of the Day comes from Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown via The Daily Beast’s Andrew Romano (who was one of the best bloggers on the old Newsweek). It seems Tea Partiers are angry at Brown for not voting the way they want on every issue, daring to actually go along with Democrats on some issues — and that he is getting frustrated by and angry at them, too. Here’s the key quote:
The strain of walking such a fine line must be getting to Brown, because as soon as he
finishes his initial round of pleasantries, he launches into a peevish rant about how unfair conservatives are being when they criticize him. “The Democrats are in charge!” he shouts, his voice reaching the high, strained register that teenagers typically use when they don’t want to take out the trash. “Does that mean I’m supposed to do nothing? That I’m supposed to vote with my party every single second of every single day? Why? I haven’t done it for 15 years in the state legislature. All of a sudden I’m supposed to be an ideologue? I’m not quite sure what the mystery is, folks. When I hear some of the comments…I don’t know what the mystery is. I said I was going down there to be a Scott Brown Republican, not someone who works for Harry Reid—or Mitch McConnell!” It’s as if Brown is no longer addressing the people in the room—again, they’re mostly Democrats. Instead, he seems to be fending off foes in Washington, real or otherwise. Unsure of how to react, the crowd quietly pokes at its meatloaf.
For Brown, winning a long-shot campaign in deep-blue Massachusetts to succeed one of the most liberal and lionized members of the Senate was the easy part. The real challenge was what came next: the struggle to define himself as a so-called Scott Brown Republican at a time when partisanship and polarization are more prevalent than ever. “A lot of senators do everything they can to avoid taking tough votes,” he tells NEWSWEEK. “But every single vote I’ve taken has been a tough vote for me.”
Brown’s party-of-one positioning has made him a uniquely powerful freshman—able, as he often reminds his constituents, to squelch legislation (as “the 41st vote”) or ensure its passage (as “the 60th”). But it has also exposed him to incessant attacks from both the left and the right.
Brown is sort of in Joe Lieberman country now: he knows he will get blasted from the other party because he has an R in front of his name. He just didn’t expected he’d have to fend of such vigorous trench warfare from disgruntled members of his own party. If he had voted lockstep Tea Party/Sarah Palin/Rush Limbaugh line they would they be “gruntled” instead? (Excuse me but I always wanted to use that word in a sentence other than from an employer trying to discredit a former employee..)
Of course, Brown is in Massachusetts.
And if the political climate changes enough so that being lockstep anti-Obama, anti-Democrat is not enough for some voters who voted for him last time, he could be more than a one-term Senator.
But when you read comments such as this you wonder how long it’ll be before Rush takes this up — and Brown apologizes and starts toeing a pure Tea Party line.
Which would be political suicide in Massachusetts.,,
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.