Frank Sinatra had that song “That’s Life” (watch it here) with the lyric “You’re riding high in April, shot down in May.” Switch around the months and it seemily to applies to Massachusett’s Senator Scott Brown. But he’s not being shot down by Democrats now as much as by GOPers.
Why? Brown’s election was greeted by Republicans and conservatives in particular as doubly delicious: he got the late Ted Kennedy’s old Senate seat (insisting it was the people’s seat, but in fact Kennedy was elected to fill it so it was Kennedy’s seat), vowed to halt health care reform by giving the GOP just enough numbers, and was photogenic. Within hours of his election, some Republican talking heads suggested Brown could be on a 2012 GOP ticket. And Brown started shopping around for a book deal for his bio (who cares if he hadn’t served three months in the Senate yet?)
But once in, he voted like a RINO on a key vote (some Republicans could look the other way on that) and a funny thing happened to the Republicans on the way to burying health care reform: it rose again out of the conventional wisdom grave (some Republicans can’t look the other way on that).
And now for a variety of reasons there is buyer’s remorse about Brown: emotional buyers’ remorse from GOPers who hoped having Brown fill Ted Kennedy’s seat would mean a political turning point and beginning of the political end for Barack Obama and the Democratic party majority. More literal REAL buyers’ remorse from those who gave money to Brown but now feel it meant little in the end. Meanwhile,several analysts pointed out an irony: Brown’s election shell shocked the Democrats, but it also caused them to take a deep breath and press harder than ever for health care reform one final time.
The best summary — one that needs to be read IN FULL — is from Jules Crittenden. Crittenden not only summarizes why Brown seems to have fallen from grace but he also provides a meaty blog roundup of health care related posts from conservative bloggers.
Crittenden also has some wise words suggesting that perhaps it’s time for the GOP to extricate itself a bit from the talk radio political culture. Here is one paragraph:
As surprising and unexpected as Scott Brown’s win in Massachusetts may have been to the Democrats, the lesson in the Democrats’ last minute, unexpected victory for the GOP is exactly the one Brown administered on a hapless Martha Coakley in January. If conservatives think America is full of rage and Congress will be theirs in November, and they plan on taking that for granted, they might be in for a surprise. November is a long way off. Talking health care for seven months when people have had to listen to it for a year might work, but I doubt it. If it was my campaign to take over Congress, I’d talk fiscal responsibility and government accountability. Everyone will know exactly what you are talking about. Elected leaders that don’t listen, spend too much and think they know better than you do.
Read it from beginning to end.
P.S. Unless his present status among Republicans changes (and it could in this mega volatile political climate — Sinatra’s song also talks about “pick myself up and get back in the race”), should we take bets now for how long it’ll take for Brown’s new book to be remaindered at Borders if it’s published?
When he signed he first floated the book deal he was hot stuff; right now to many GOPers he’s tepid room temperature.
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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.