Not So Fast

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The Eccentric Observer

Old Dominion Tory

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Scott Brown’s victory is—and ever will be—utterly astonishing. As a state senator representing a Boston exurb and bearing the standard of party that commands the loyalty of eleven percent of the state’s voters, he defeated a statewide office holder who represents the dominant party in Massachusetts politics. He did so a little more than fourteen months after Massachusetts gave almost 70% of its votes to Barack Obama. He did so after being 30 points down in most polls a month before Election Day. 

As John F. Kennedy observed after the Bay of Pigs, defeat is an orphan and victory has a thousand fathers. I won’t be surprised, therefore, if innumerable members of the Republican Party’s establishment in Washington, D.C., start claiming some share of the credit for Brown’s victory and patting themselves on the back for all that they did to ensure his win.

Not so fast, ladies and gentlemen. The reality is, of course, that Scott Brown and his team deserve all of the credit for the victory. Brown refused to adhere to conventional wisdom and mount “a feisty challenge” (editorialists’ lingo for a forlorn hope). He sensed he could pull off the upset, went out among the voters (many time alone with a few signs and some leaflets), and brought his campaign right to them. When he hit the airwaves, he kept it cool and kept it positive (often, we discount the power of likeability in politics). He was a quintessential “happy warrior.” This meant that by the time Martha Coakley and the Massachusett(e)s Democratic Party finally took him seriously and tried to demonize him, this positive image already was cemented in the minds of many voters.  Therefore, the negative ads just rolled off him. 

Please don’t forget that many of the people in the Republican establishment who will sing Scott Brown’s praises and bask in the reflected glow of his victory are the ones who wrote him off earlier, who viewed his chances of winning as slim to none. Recall, too, that they are the members and the leaders of the same GOP establishment that governed and campaigned in a way that lost them majorities in the Senate and the House and, so, subjected the country to the leadership of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. Suffice it to say, therefore, that there is every chance that these men and women will mistranslate Brown’s victory as an indication that voters have forgiven them for past record of lackluster leadership and chronic mismanagement by voters and their return to the heady days of the 1990s and early 2000s is just months away.

What these “Potomac Village Republicans” need to do, after finishing making the rounds of the news shows, is to study how victories were won in Massachusetts, Virginia, and New Jersey, how energetic, imaginative candidates managed to revive the fortunes of the Republican Party in their states, and how they often managed to do without the “assistance” of the national GOP establishment. They must do so calmly and diligently, but, more important, they must do so humbly because, unless they are willing to admit that a lot of the damage done to the GOP over the past seven years can be put down to them, even the Democrats’ growing disarray--and voters burgeoning dismay with them—won’t be enough to reestablish the GOP as a natural governing party.
 

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Comments

[MCNS]

I like that: Scott Brown and the Forlorn Hope. He definitely deserves the promotion for pulling it off!

[Caspar]

Hear, hear. I think the Dems have, in essence, over-reached. They assumed that their victory - Obama's victory - was, in essence a great new mandate by the people to accomplish, as Martha might say, *Great Things*. But in fact, our country has been, and remains, essentially conservative and resistant to anything other than incremental change. And that means change to EITHER the left OR the right. (Beware, those who dream of a pre-FDR Republic). IF Republicans can find a leader who will work from today's commonly held values but will ALSO note the value and positive character of the PAST values of this country .... well, then we might displace the fine gentleman from Illinois from his perch in the White House.

[american fez]

Speaking as a Massachusettes resident, I have to say that this is the best - and sanest - overview of the senatorial election that I have yet read. Brown won because he was, hands down, the best candidate. It's as simple as that in my view. I like to think my neighbors were smart enough to vote for the person they wanted as their senator, and not as a protest over an issue or the broader political landscape (whatever that is). Meanwhile, Republicans should bear in mind that the most apt description I have heard of Brown is that he is "your grandfather's Democrat."

[Old Dominion Tory]

In a broad sense, American Fez, he's also my grandfather's, my father's, and, to an extent, my Republican.