WHO IS SCOTT BROWN?

He's the Republican candidate running against Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, the Democrat, in the special election on January 19 to fill the late Senator Ted Kennedy's seat, and he is closing in on Coakley in the polls.

Lots of people call Massachusetts the bluest of the blue states.  But is it?  It is true that in local elections and presidential elections, we consistently vote for the Democrat, but since the 1850s, Massachusetts has had 33 Republican governors and 17 governors from the Democratic Party.  We have also had 15 Republican senators and 9 Democratic senators.  I think Massachusetts is more of a violet than a blue state.  The Mass. state legislature is decidedly blue--local elections--but other than that, we've sent more Republican governors to the State House and the US Senate than we have Democrats.  In 1984 Massachusetts, along with the rest of the country, except Minnesota, helped Ronald W. Reagan win a landslide victory.

Scott Brown may very well become the junior senator from Massachusetts next Tuesday.  No one knows for sure what will happen.

Here is a review of Brown's positions on the relevant political issues set out by Joan Vennochi of the Boston Globe:

He is allegedly for health care reform, except he doesn’t support the historic health care reform legislation that is on the brink of passage in Washington and was Kennedy’s life quest.

He supports Roe v. Wade, except that a prominent anti-abortion advocacy group backs him as a “pro-life vote in the Senate.’’ 


He dispatched his 21-year old daughter to attack Coakley for stating the truth: In 2005, Brown sponsored a legislative amendment that would have allowed medical personnel to deny emergency contraception to rape victims if it “conflicts with a sincerely held religious belief.’’ The amendment didn’t pass, but Brown owned it. It was attached to a bill that he ultimately voted for, which required emergency rooms to provide contraceptives to rape victims. 


Recently, Brown told the Boston Herald that gay marriage “is settled law. People have moved on.’’ Not long ago, though, he wanted to put it up for a referendum. 


Brown bristles at Coakley’s persistent efforts to tie him to the Bush-Cheney years. But, he supports Bush-Cheney policies, from taxes to torture. 


Brown is a lawyer and also a judge advocate general, sworn to uphold the Geneva Conventions, who insists water-boarding is not torture. With that strange argument, he clashes with John McCain, the GOP presidential nominee who endorsed him.

One other thing.  If Brown is elected, he will be the first senator from Massachusetts who posed naked in a national magazine.  Imagine the howls of disapproval had a young Martha Coakley done the same!