Paul Giorgio: Scott Brown: To Be or Not to Be

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Paul Giorgio, GoLocalWorcester MINDSETTER

Scott Brown will say or do anything to try to stay relevant in the political process, believes Paul Giorgio.

In a column published in the Monday Boston Herald, Political columnist Kimberly Atkins questioned the viability of a Scott Brown’s campaign for the Senate in New Hampshire. I quote:

“There are a lot of questions swirling around former U.S. Sen. Scott Brown’s possible bid to be New Hampshire’s next U.S. senator: Will he run? Can he win? When will he decide, already?”

This is a question I asked when I first wrote several weeks ago about Brown’s nascent candidacy in the Granite State.

In order to gain a seat in the US Senate from New Hampshire, Brown must take on the incumbent and former two-term Governor Jeanne Shaheen. Right now, the race appears to be close, but early polling usually is a reflection of name recognition and not issue identification. Brown has been doing the “Dance of 1000 veils” as he flirts with New Hampshire voters. This act gets tired pretty quickly. His waffling has allowed outside groups to identify Brown rather than him to identify himself to voters. There already have been plenty of attack ads on both sides. Brown has been depicted as to close to big oil and in the coldest winter in a long time, with heating prices skyrocketing, that is not the description you want.

The wrong kind of Republican

Also, Brown has been involved in some dumb business ventures – the most notable with email spammers.

Shaheen is a known quantity in New Hampshire, and she has been around for over thirty years. Brown is new, having recently moved from Massachusetts, after he lost his Senate seat to Elizabeth Warren in 2012.

Although, Brown may have been to moderate for Massachusetts voters, is he too liberal for Granite staters, who refer to Massachusetts residents as “Massholes”.

Brown’s position on gun control may be too liberal for New Hampshire Republicans who just may stay home if he is the nominee. Additionally, Brown is no darling of the Tea Party.

What Brown is doing, by his uncertainty, is keeping other Republicans out of the race.

The Sarah Palin Syndrome

Now, previously, I referred to him as Sarah Palin in a Barn Jacket and that assessment still holds true. He will say or do anything to try to stay relevant in the political process. Brown, like Palin, believes that if people are talking about you, you must be relevant. Like Palin, at the end of the day it is not about political relevancy that matters, it is really about money.

You see, Brown thinks that by people talking about him, it increases his worth in the marketplace. It is a fine line between talking and laughing, and being the butt of the Late Night TV Comics. Palin has crossed that line, and Brown could if anyone was really paying attention to him.

The question for the National Republican leadership is this: Do they want to stake their taking back of the Senate on a Scott Brown campaign?

Atkins ended her column with this: “Meanwhile, Republicans in New Hampshire and across the nation, eager to begin a bid to retake the Senate in the midterm election, are waiting with bated breath. Some are excited, some are nervous and some are downright annoyed at Brown’s penchant for indecisiveness.”

As a Democrat, I hope Brown runs. It will be a joy to watch him try to run to the right, loose the election and become totally irrelevant. Then to paraphrase Richard Nixon, we won’t have Scott Brown to kick around anymore.

Paul Giorgio is a longtime Democratic Party Activist who has worked on numerous campaigns. He was a Lead Advance Person for President Clinton & Vice President Gore. He was Deputy Director of Special Events for President Clinton’s first Inauguration. He has been elected a delegate to numerous Democratic National Conventions and recently served as one of President Obama’s representatives on the Platform Committee. In 2013 he was chosen as a Presidential Elector. He is the President of Pagio, Inc., publishers of Pulse Magazine, Vitality Magazine and Worcester Medicine.