Mr. Brown Goes to Washington

Life Imitates Art

In all the tradition and improbability of the 1939 Frank Capra film classic, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Massachusetts State Senator, Scott Phillip Brown has accomplished what political pundits dismissed as impossible just two months ago. In the movie, Mr. Smith played by “everyman” Jimmy Stewart, a naive man appointed to fill the vacancy in the US Senate created by the death of one of his State’s Senators. Mr. Smith quickly collides with political corruption, but doesn’t wilt under the intense pressure, and ultimately and dramatically becomes a state and national hero.

While Mr. Smith was appointed to the vacant Senate seat, Mr. Brown didn’t have it so easy. Brown, a Protestant Republican in the heavily Catholic bluest of blue states seeking to succeed the iconic, if not venerable, Lion of the Senate, Ted Kennedy, was considered well……an almost perfunctory gesture on the part of the GOP to even nominate a candidate.

Massachusetts is Blue for a Reason

The Massachusetts demographics were stacked heavily against Mr. Brown. The state’s political demographics are 38% Democrat, 11% Republican, and 51% Independent, a state that Obama won by 26 points in 2008 (62% to 36%). The Independents in the state are decidedly left leaning. Further exacerbating the situation, religious demographics have the state at 44% Catholic; slightly more than double the percentage of Protestants in the state.

Pollsters posited that for Brown to have a chance in the Bay State, the breakdown of the political demographics on Election Day had to be 33% Democrat, 12% Republican, and 55% Independent. It was said if that happened and if Brown was able to carry two-thirds of the independent vote, he would win 51% to 49%.

The Making of an American Hero

Democrats find it almost impossible to believe that this Senate seat they've held since John F. Kennedy could go to a Republican. The Bay State has not elected a Republican to the Senate since 1972. Ted Kennedy held his seat for almost 47 years until his death last August.

So how is it that “Downtown Scotty Brown”, as he was called on the Tufts University basketball team and the 1982 Sexiest Man in America posing in the buff of the centerfold of Cosmopolitan magazine, became the victor in the most important non presidential election in the past 50 years?

It is the quintessential American success story and a far more compelling tale than the movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. A child of divorced parents, Scott was raised by his grandmother and later his aunt. An arrest at age twelve for shop lifting caused Scott to take a better path, devoting his energy to sports and ultimately playing on the Tufts University basketball team. Brown is an accomplished cyclist, swimmer, and runner and has won a number of triathlons. He earned his BA from Tufts and his Juris Doctor from Boston College of Law. Brown worked for a while as an actor/model appearing in several commercials.

Scott Brown entered politics in 1992 and has served in the Massachusetts Senate since 2004. Mr. Brown has served in the Massachusetts National Guard for thirty years and currently holds the rank of Lt. Colonel in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps. Brown has been deployed to Kazakhstan and Paraguay. He and his wife Gail have two daughters, Arianna and Ayla. Prior to winning the race for Senator, the most famous member of the Brown family was Ayla, an American Idol semi finalist and Boston College basketball player.

Brown is considered a conservative Republican by Massachusetts standards and a moderate Republican by national standards. Scott Brown is anti tax, pro gun, strong national defense, pro choice, and supports civil unions, but not gay marriages.

At The Precipice

The monumental Massachusetts Senate victory by Scott Brown was every bit a referendum on the Obama Democrat administration and agenda. Massachusetts merely served as a microcosm of the national outrage over Obama’s radical agenda and the utter contempt and arrogance displayed toward the will of the American people. It’s no surprise that after a year in office, President Obama has the lowest approval rating of any President in modern history after his first year.

The American voters either ignored the obvious lifelong radical nurturing, tutoring, and political record of Obama, or more likely were sweep up in the frenzied media promotion of the potential of the nation’s first black(well almost) President. Never underestimate the judgment of the American people, bad or good. Things appear to be changing now in a very big way.

How ironic then at the beginning when Obama declared "change we can believe in" and proclaimed "Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of my presidency," quite the antithesis of the litany, too numerous to enumerate, of appointments, initiatives, legislation, actions, inactions both domestically and abroad since his inauguration. Only the most myopic of the far left views the Obama Presidency as anything but an abject failure.

It borders on the unbelievable that this President, as an ineffectual neophyte, has squandered a congressional majority because of his hard coded Socialist ideology, obnoxious arrogance, and pseudo intellect. From a community organizer to the President of the United States is clearly a bridge too far.

The American experience under Obama is rapidly becoming the tandem nightmares of George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. The Orwellian “Big Brother” and “Newspeak” have become an all too familiar part of the contemporary landscape. Orwell wrote of the truth being concealed from us, while Huxley told of the truth being drowned in a maelstrom of irrelevance. In 1984, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, people are controlled by inflicting pleasure.

The nation now teeters on the precipice of becoming a socialist state with the Senate Health Care Bill before the House. If passed, Obama Health Care becomes a major domino in the crashing down of America’s democracy and free enterprise system.
Now with Scott Brown taking the 60th vote in the Senate from the Democrats the Obama Health Care Plan appears to be in terminal condition along with the entire Obama agenda.

It’s not too difficult to imagine that the Democrats will try every manner of chicanery and bribes to push the 2000 page HC monster to passage, but there are a few comments that at least a few have seen the blinding light of the obvious in the Scott Brown victory.

Virginia Senator Jim Webb stated: “In many ways the campaign in Massachusetts became a referendum not only on health care reform but also on the openness and integrity of our government process. I believe it would only be fair and prudent that we suspend further votes on health care legislation until Senator-elect Brown is seated.”

Fellow Massachusetts citizen and Congressman Barney Frank, a friend of neither democracy nor free enterprise remarked: "I have two reactions to the election in Massachusetts.”

“One, I am disappointed. Two, I feel strongly that the Democratic majority in Congress must respect the process and make no effort to bypass the electoral results. If Martha Coakley had won, I believe we could have worked out a reasonable compromise between the House and Senate health care bills.”

“But since Scott Brown has won and the Republicans now have 41 votes in the Senate, that approach is no longer appropriate. I am hopeful that some Republican Senators will be willing to discuss a revised version of health care reform because I do not think that the country would be well-served by the health care status quo. But our respect for democratic procedures must rule out any effort to pass a health care bill as if the Massachusetts election had not happened.”

“ Going forward, I hope there will be a serious effort to change the Senate rule which means that 59 votes are not enough to pass major legislation, but those are the rules by which the health care bill was considered, and it would be wrong to change them in the middle of the process."

The stage is now set for the Republicans to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat; managed properly this November the GOP could gain at least 25 seats in the House and possibly six seats in the Senate.

We may expect Senator Scott Brown to become the new bête noire of the media, as demonstrated by the seldom viewed MSNBC Host, Keith Oldermann: “In short, in Scott Brown we have an irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude model, tea bagging supporter of violence against woman and against politicians with whom he disagrees.”

Welcome to Washington Mr. Brown, may you enjoy success that exceeds that of Mr. Smith. After all, your success may be instrumental in saving the country we know and love.