The 'Scott Brown Strategy': New Recipe for GOP Success?
Parties Revise Their Campaign Playbooks to Include Brown Strategy
Republicans and Democrats alike were drawing lessons from Republican Scott Brown's win in Massachusetts even before it happened, in an attempt to replicate his success on one side and neutralize his potential imitators on the other
The dust settles. The smoke clears. And from the bottom of the pileup, Scott Brown emerges with ball in hand.
Brown's stunning upset victory in Tuesday's Massachusetts Senate election changed more than the "political math" on Capitol Hill, as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid acknowledged. The Republican candidate's capture of the Senate seat the late Ted Kennedy held for nearly five decades also changed the calculus for both parties as they look ahead to the November midterm elections.
Republicans and Democrats alike were drawing lessons from Brown's win even before it happened, with one side looking to replicate his success, and the other hoping to neutralize his potential imitators.
In the two days since Brown's victory, Republicans have rejoiced, citing his win as evidence that President Obama's ambitious government-centered agenda has failed. Democrats, meanwhile, have cowered, and are rethinking their approach to health care reform at levels all the way up to the White House.
Brown's victory is expected to reward the Republican Party with a windfall of fundraising and eager recruits. So far, the national party infrastructure is claiming a good measure of responsibility for his win, with the Republican National Committee touting its get-out-the-vote operation in the Bay State.
But Kevin Madden, former spokesman for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, suggested the RNC -- and its controversial chairman, Michael Steele -- may want to learn some lessons as well.
"The people who deserve credit are, first, Scott Brown, and secondly the people on his campaign," Madden said. "It became a national election in the space of one week."
"I don't think Brown was following any of the 12 rules in Steele's new book," said Jeremy Mayer, public policy professor at George Mason University.
Mayer said both major parties need to be careful in how they read the race. He said Republicans cannot take it as a sign that they should oppose absolutely everything with a Democrat's name on it. And Democrats, he said, should not become "Reagan Democrats" in response.
"The Democrats are really in trouble if they panic," he said.
The immediate take-home point from Brown's win seems to be that economy- and jobs-based campaigns are successful, and strategists expect both parties to process that lesson quickly in the races ahead.
"The message of economic pragmatism trumps all right now when it comes to persuading voters," Madden said.
Soon after Brown's win, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Robert Menendez said Democrats "need to redouble our efforts on the economy." Other Democrats cited economic concerns foremost in their reaction to the Massachusetts results.
But the other lessons the parties draw will determine how effective their playbooks are in November.
Mayer said Democrats would be wise to "go populist" and focus on targeting Wall Street on one end -- something Obama did with his proposal to limit risk-taking on Thursday -- and targeting insurance companies on the other.
He said Democrats can craft a successful health care bill by homing in on the specific reforms that stop insurance companies from denying and cutting off coverage, and leaving out other proposals. From there, he said, Democrats can tout those achievements on the campaign trail.
But he said Republicans can "trump" that card by doing the same thing. He said the party would achieve a bigger win by working with Democrats and then taking "ownership" of a pared-down health bill. He said Republicans will lose their momentum if they take Brown's win as a sign that they should be the "Party of No."
But it's unclear which path GOP leaders want to take.
"This bill is dead," House Minority Leader John Boehner said Thursday, declaring that his members would not work with the other side of the aisle on a bill he called a "monstrosity." But he suggested Republicans still want to work on health care in a "bipartisan way."
Analysts said that as Democrats look at the vulnerable field before them, they likely will try hard not to repeat the obvious mistake Martha Coakley's Massachusetts campaign, and be aggressive and pro-active early on against their GOP opponents, no matter how blue the district.
Republicans should be prepared for that. But likewise, Democrats should be prepared for a tough message from the GOP on the Obama administration's agenda.
GOPAC Chairman Frank Donatelli said the lesson from last November's gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey and this week's Senate race in Massachusetts is that "there is no penalty to be paid for opposing the Obama agenda."
But he agreed with the assertion that Republicans can't just be anti-Obama all the time. The GOP needs to stand for something, he said.
Madden said Republicans can win if they keep the middle, by focusing on jobs and overspending.
"What this election tells us is Democrats have driven away independents from their party and into our hands," he said. "How we keep them is up to us."
FOXNews.com
Character Assassination Begins: Liberal State-Run Media Targets Scott Brown
Brown record doesn't always match everyman images - Progressive propaganda machine has begun
BOSTON -- As he campaigned for the U.S. Senate from the back of his green pickup, Scott Brown portrayed himself as an independent-minded everyman and moderate candidate fighting the Democratic "machine."
But as a Republican in Massachusetts, Brown sometimes found himself to the right of his own party.
He once proposed an amendment which would have allowed emergency room doctors to deny emergency contraception to rape victims based on the doctor's religious beliefs, which drew the ire of fellow Republicans. But, Brown voted for the final version of the bill without the amendment.
He has criticized the federal stimulus program as ineffective, but said he would not return the money.
And in the final weeks of the campaign, Brown benefited from the financial backing of conservative groups like the Tea Party movement which pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into television ads for him.
Like former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin and even Barack Obama in 2008, Brown is getting a boost from his own limited political resume, according to Julian Zelizer, professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. In the absence of a strong record or public profile, voters felt free to read into the candidates whatever they want.
"There is a virtue of not being a known commodity and not having tons of experience in the national spotlight," Zelizer said. "With Palin, people knew nothing about her when she was introduced ... and that was an asset at first."
Brown was able to craft his own image in the public mind in large part because of an initial lackluster response from Democrat Martha Coakley, the state's attorney general who was considered by many a shoo-in after double-digit leads in polls coming off a primary win last month.Only after Brown picked up momentum and polls reflected a tight race did Coakley respond, but it was too little, too late.
In his acceptance speak Tuesday night, Brown again declared himself an independent thinker.
"I go to Washington as the representative of no faction or interest, answering only to my conscience and to the people," Brown said. "I've got a lot to learn in the Senate, but I know who I am and I know who I serve. I'm Scott Brown. I'm from Wrentham. I drive a truck, and I am nobody's senator but yours."
Key to Brown's campaign was his pledge to be the 41st vote to block Obama's health care initiative, but Brown himself voted in favor of the 2006 Massachusetts health care law that has been used as a blue print for the bill working its way through Congress.
On health care, Brown has said he supports providing health care to everyone, but would block the bill and send it "back to the drawing board." But Brown has also said that providing health care is best left up to the states.
"There should be a way for the states to go and do what we have here," Brown said in December. "They should have the ability to see what their needs are and what help they need, if any, from the federal government and tailor a plan that's good for their individual states."
Another key to his campaign was an strong anti-tax message. In his first television ad, he invoked President John F. Kennedy in calling for lower taxes. In the ad, Brown segued an old newsreel of Kennedy calling for tax cuts into a clip of Brown reading from the same speech.
But as a state senator Brown opposed a 2008 ballot initiative that would have eliminated the state income tax and saved the average taxpayer about $3,700 a year according to supporters.
He also supported hundreds of millions in higher fees and fines pushed by former Republican Gov. Mitt Romney during his first two years in office.
While he's portrayed himself as an independent-minded candidate on the campaign trail, Brown's campaign has pulled in support from deep-pocketed lobbying and interests groups, from U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Tea Party movement, and the Iowa-based conservative American Future Fund, which spent about $600,000 on an ad saying Coakley "supports the reckless spending by Washington politicians."
During the campaign, Brown portrayed himself as stronger on national security. He said terror suspects shouldn't have the same constitutional protections as U.S. citizens, and chastised Coakley for saying there were no al-Qaida terrorists left in Afghanistan.
He also campaigned alongside former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, but a month after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Brown was one of three Massachusetts representatives to vote against a bill that would have granted paid leave to state workers volunteering for disaster relief with the American Red Cross.
He's also positioned himself to the right of his party's 2008 presidential nominee, Arizona Sen. John McCain, over the simulated drowning tactic known as waterboarding to gain information from suspected terrorists. McCain, who endorsed Brown, opposes waterboarding.
Brown said he doesn't believe waterboarding is torture.
Brown, one of just five Republicans in the 40-member Massachusetts Senate, found himself at odds with other members of his party on social issues.
In 2005, Brown sponsored an amendment to a bill requiring hospitals make emergency contraception available to rape victims. Brown's amendment would have created an exemption for doctors and nurses with "sincerely held religious beliefs" against abortion.
Coakley's campaign seized on the issue, pointing out that even Brown's Republican Senate colleagues criticized the proposal, saying the needs of rape victims should come first.
The criticism struck a nerve with Brown, who called it a "red herring." At one point during the campaign, Brown's two daughters - including a former "American Idol" contestant - met with reporters to vouch that their father cared about rape victims.
Although he touted the fact he'd put more than 200,000 miles on his truck, Brown earns a comfortable income and owns several properties, including his home in Wrentham, three apartments in Boston and a time share.
Besides his base Senate salary of $61,440, Brown also reported earning up to $20,000 from his National Guard service and between $80,000 and $100,000 from a law practice in 2008, according to his latest financial statement filed with the state.
Brown ran in part on a clean cut family image, touring the state dressed in a barn jacket, often with one or both of his daughters in tow. His wife, Gail Huff, a television reporter in Boston, was absent from the campaign until election night.
He's also served 30 years as a member Massachusetts Army National Guard and holds rank of Lieutenant Colonel.
But while he was a law student, Brown traded on his matinee good looks for work as a model, and while still in law school, he posed nude for Cosmopolitan magazine - in a photo spread with a strategically placed crease in the magazine.
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Associated Press Writer Glen Johnson in Boston contributed to this report
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