Scott Brown: Doomed from the Beginning

Why even try then? (5.00 / 1)

you don't win a state-wide race as a Republican during a presidential year

I keep hearing after this cycle that it's useless here in Massachusetts. We can win in the occasional off-presidential cycle, but every 4 years we are going to get our clocked clean. The numbers certainly make a case for the MA GOP's futility in these elections. However, it seems like after this election more than ever I'm hearing talk of the inability for the MA GOP to win elections in Presidential election years.  

This is an awful message to come from our party leaders when we should be focusing on candidate recruitment. I know you're referring to statewide races, but this pessimism over the vaunted Democratic turnout machine permeates the recruitment efforts at all levels.

Look, our campaigns weren't prefect, and there is much room for improvement. However, we seem to never critically think about how to improve our campaigns. This is where our greatest fault as a party lies - the inability to analyze, adapt and improve.

On twitter @bfrivers

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by: brivers @ Wed Nov 14, 2012 at 23:01:17 PM UTC

Correction (0.00 / 0)

This version of the MA Republican party will get it's clocks rocked.  The unrolled take one look, and check the D box.

Again, this is a call to become more Conservative, since the part is lacking in it.  That is not the same as a right-ward shift, being at the point that some of the party leaders and base are as far as they can go, in many cases taking up rightward, un-conservative positions.

Brown ran a very distasteful smear campaign, and in the debates he fell back on national GOP talking points.  Thats what killed him.  He didn't sound bipartisan one bit, and the MA electorate is pretty knowledgeable when it comes to politics.  

The keywords that got the base fired up (wink wink, nudge nudge) completely turned off unrolled and female voters.  They saw right through it.  

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by: Ryan @ Thu Nov 15, 2012 at 02:19:34 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

so prove me wrong (0.00 / 0)

A friend of mine gave me the last time a Republican won state-wide in Massachusetts during a Presidential year...it was like 1970.

So, my statement wasn't based on an opinion, it was based on 30 or 40 years of recent history.

If Scott Brown, a sitting US Senator, loses by 8+ points during a Presidential year where the top of the ticket is a former MA Governor, than I'd argue that we won't change anytime soon.

And, I suppose it's up to you on if we should "try", but plenty of races go uncontested because they are impossible to win. Why do you think no sitting State Rep or Senator gave up their seat to run for Congress?

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by: Matt_Elder @ Thu Nov 15, 2012 at 18:06:43 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Not much of a sample size there ... (5.00 / 1)

Except for Scott Brown there haven't been many state-wide races during Presidential years. The most notable one outside of Brown is probably Weld/Kerry in '96. Given that one Senate seat was held by a Kennedy it's not like we're talking about numerous competitive races. It's more like we went 0 for 2.  

Your premise is that the presidential election year was "100%" responsible for Scott Brown's loss. That would mean he ran a perfect campaign and there was no room for improvement, which is hardly the case. I've already talked about the areas were Brown erred (asbestos/native american ads, lack of any reason to vote for him, dodged the final debate, etc.) There are many more criticisms of the campaign out there.

The thing I do agree with you on is that tacking to the right wasn't going to get him more votes. However, an improvement to his campaign message, ads, GOTV, etc. certainly may have.

As for proving you wrong, by your standards I guess that will have to wait until the next time there's a Senate and Presidential election in the same year. So, we can talk about this again in 2020. I prefer to work to build the party until then so we can achieve a victory as opposed to just writing off our chances.

On twitter @bfrivers

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by: brivers @ Fri Nov 16, 2012 at 00:37:09 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Because we learn... (5.00 / 1)

...or we should learn.

I also thought Senator Brown would lose by 5 - I said that a year ago for the reasons Matt said so.

But what a hell of a race! Brown tested many campaign strategies. Many new activists came into the corps. Lots of data was gathered. The numbers for and against Brown all over the state will be poured over for years. It will be useful to all future campaigns.

Of course, our party is not set up to gather, disseminate, analyze, and learn from data the way we should be able to. But we should work toward that. Every race should improve the RTCs and provide valuable information to help others. Yet almost all campaigns come and go and the RTCs beneath them gain almost nothing. Data from a losing campaign is almost never shared. These things are unacceptable, and these issues are what the party should be talking about, not the endless ideology war.

So maybe we don't win as much every four years. But we should all resolve that these losses teach us as much as possible, and make us stronger in some places.

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by: edfactor @ Thu Nov 15, 2012 at 00:41:39 AM UTC

Nope. (5.00 / 1)

Scott Brown was an incumbent.  Obama was an incumbent.  Incumbents win.  He was not doomed to lose.  Not at all.

The loss is 100% Scott Brown's.

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"That it ceased to exist, I'll grant you, but whether or not it failed cannot be definitively said." - Metropolitan (1990)

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by: Patrick @ Thu Nov 15, 2012 at 00:50:27 AM UTC

Uh ... (0.00 / 0)

You have to admit that running in Mass is a bit of an uphill race for anyone not handing out pixie dust, no?

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by: nomad943 @ Thu Nov 15, 2012 at 13:18:07 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Blame Gets Divided by 1.7 million Fools (0.00 / 0)

It always amazes me when I consider the intelligence of the AVERAGE voter. 1.7 million fools actually believed that Warren cared about them. What else can be said?                    

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by: nomad943 @ Thu Nov 15, 2012 at 13:16:48 PM UTC

Warren is worse than I thought (0.00 / 0)

Her press conference with Patrick and now the stunt in Washington DC (saying pretend like you are talking with me with another senator to avoid questions) - really shows her lack of political skills.

Frankly I thought she would be better.

But she is just holding the Kennedy seat for Joe.

You would think if you were a Democratic politician in this state you would be upset about this stepping to the front of the line. You work all your life as a politician - and then someone with the Kennedy name takes your place - or the national DNC thinks a Harvard professor would make a better candidate then the local politicians.  

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by: roarkarchitect @ Thu Nov 15, 2012 at 13:53:31 PM UTC

Wow, you don't think his "not gonna raise taxes on billionaires" had anything to do with it (0.00 / 0)

That was what Elizabeth Warren kept reminding us, that he was so beholden to the radical obstructionist Republicans in Congress that he would rather have taxes go up on the middle class than raise them on the 1%.

I didn't want him to mention abortion or immigration, and I didn't mind that he said he was pro-choice. I do wish he continued to defend marriage and think he would have won if he had spearheaded my compromise to end same-sex marriage, he'd be the next President probably. But it was his fiscal insanity, his defending big oil and millionaires and billionaires, that made most people hold their nose and vote for Warren.

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by: John Howard @ Thu Nov 15, 2012 at 14:59:18 PM UTC

This is stupid. (0.00 / 0)

The Bush tax RATES were the tax policy for the last decade.

It was Elizabeth Warren who so hated the top 2% that she was willing to let taxes be raised on 100% of the people by letting these tax rates expire without a full extension.

The fact the Republican party even let the Democrats call them the "Bush tax cuts" is an indictment of their ability to form a coherent message.

The problem with the Republican Party isn't that it's too offensive, it's that it's too defensive. It operates with the left's premise as if those people act in good faith. They don't. They are pathological liars. Their candidates are extremists. And it's time to stop giving them the benefit of the doubt when they have done so much over the past, oh, 150 years to prove that no one should take their starting point as an intellectually serious one.

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by: Publius Menpaean @ Thu Nov 15, 2012 at 22:24:00 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I'll try again then (0.00 / 0)

The original poster said "The notion that Scott Brown lost this election because he went too far in the middle is one of the dumber arguments of the 2012 post mortems I've seen and heard so far."

Brown lost my support when he stopped being a defender of marriage, but I'm just one vote. He might have lost some other people with his prochoice stuff. I don't know if he'd have won if he had just kept all of us on board by not pandering to women and rallied around restoring marriage, or not.

My point was that most people voted for Warren because they thought she would not stop hiking taxes on the richest 1%, she'd end subsidies for big oil,  she'd not be part of the Republican party with their climate change denial and extreme views on embryos having all the rights of personhood.

I think he'd have won if he made a principled defense of marriage, showed respect for gays and lesbians by supporting Civil Unions that gave all the benefits but the right to conceive offspring together, repudiated extreme elements in his party on things like Personhood and abortion with no exception for rape, and said he would lead his party away from fiscal and environmental insanity.

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by: John Howard @ Thu Nov 15, 2012 at 23:02:12 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Follow-Up (0.00 / 0)

To be honest I don't even support civil unions for the simple fact that you are essentially making it public policy that any two people who show up to the Justice of the Peace can apply for a special government status that confers them special benefits, for any reason or no reason. And, given the wacky marriage laws we have also allow for unilateral dissolution of such arrangement with penalties for one of the parties payable usually to the one that unilaterally dissolved it to begin with.

The easiest solution is just to split out the individual rights of concern here (you should be able to pass your property onto anyone you please and be visited in the hospital by anyone you please) and strengthen marriage as an institution that government favors on the basis of its strength in promoting new taxpayers that grow up in environments with the least likelihood of creating government dependence.

That is why marriage is granted beneficial status in the first place. There's no such thing as a right to marriage. How can it be a right if you have to gain the consent of another party to engage in it?

I supported Scott and didn't think he was doomed precisely because whatever you thought of his votes, he was honest in his stated intentions and followed through, and thus in my estimation deserved a full term. He lost to a complete radical whose life-long record of dishonesty is contemptible. I would hope in 2018 he would face a primary challenge from the right, but I thought he performed exactly as he said he would, and as such deserved a full term for keeping that promise under extreme pressure.

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by: Publius Menpaean @ Fri Nov 16, 2012 at 03:49:36 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

response to that (0.00 / 0)

Well, any man and woman that are eligible to marry can show up to the Justice of the Peace and get that special government status for any reason or no reason, but there is no rash of people doing that because it's a big commitment. Some couples do it for benefits, but most of them do it because they are a committed loving couple and they want the security and status of being committed to each other exclusively. You shouldn't exclude gay people from having that option for their relationships, they want the same security and public acknowledgement for their relationships, it benefits society and families and children, and same-sex couples need and deserve it. And remember we already let them marry for any reason or no reason, so your objection is rather petulant and obnoxious and obstructionist.

I agree we should crack down on sham marriages done just for benefits, where the couple is not truly giving their body to each other and has no willingness to create "new taxpayers" together as you say. There are probably many sham marriages just to get survivor benefits that ought not to be eligible for benefits, and maybe some people that ought to be eligible for survivor benefits that aren't because they didn't technically marry.

It is not easier to split out the individual rights, that would be much more complicated, both for the couple having to do it, and for government now being asked to keep track of 1000 different commitments instead of just one. It's much easier just to let same-sex couples have a totally parallel legal structure that is unequal in only one way: it doesn't approve and allow the conception of offspring.

There is no right to force a partner to marry you, but there is a right to marry, you can't be prohibited from marrying someone who wants to marry you, if you're eligible to marry each other. Again, you are being rather obstructionist when you make silly objections like that.

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by: John Howard @ Fri Nov 16, 2012 at 05:21:24 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Government provides neither security not acceptance (0.00 / 0)

The entire problem with your argument is that a piece of paper from the government doesn't provide any of those things.

You have to plan to be monogamous of your own free will. Government can't do that by granting you a trinket. You actually have to love, value, and respect the other person. I know of no marriage license that has, of it's own power, prevented infidelity. More to the point commitment in any sense of the word isn't even required. You can be swingers and still have a marriage license.

Either way it isn't going to change the brute biological reality that when men and women get together the contours of the relationship are entirely different than two men or two women, and the reason marriage benefits exist at all is not because government has a Disney understanding of true love, it's because in olden days government officials actually disliked people sucking resources from the system and wanted to incentivize behaviors that would minimize it.

It is not obstructionist to make an argument that marriage is not a right. Because it isn't. By definition it CAN'T be. Just like health care CAN'T be a right because it's a product and/or service. It is impossible to have an individual right that requires the consent of another person to engage in - therefore whatever that supposed "right" is cannot be.

What is silly is your invention of an excuse for your muddled thinking on the subject. There are multiple avenues to dealing with the valid concerns expressed by people in gay relationships. Fundamentally changing a societal institution because it'd be "obstructionist" not to is not among them. It'd also be obstructionist not to say illegal aliens have a right to medicaid, food stamps, and EBT. Oddly that argument makes no sense either. "Obstructionist" itself is a throwaway term. There are many abuses I'd like to obstruct - because they are good things to obstruct in the first place!

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by: Publius Menpaean @ Fri Nov 16, 2012 at 12:25:11 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

The piece of paper provides 1000's of things (0.00 / 0)

It means you can't abandon the other person, you can't have sex with someone else, other people respect the permanence and commitment a little bit more and don't seduce you or your spouse. That's not true of merely "monogamous by their own free will" relationships. Those things would all be true of my Civil Unions too, the only difference is they wouldn't approve and allow the conception of children. And those things are true even after you stop loving valuing and respecting the person. Yes, you can be swingers and still have a marriage license, but so what? I'm having trouble understanding where you are coming from, are you a traditionalist opposed to swingers and divorce, or opposed to marriage, or what? Wait, are you another Libertarian? That'd explain the incoherence and obstructionism.

All people have a right to marry, no one can be prohibited from marrying, if they find someone eligible who consents to marry them. That's what is meant by "a right to marry" - you are correct there is no right to have a spouse provided to you. That's not what is meant by the right to marry. Same with the right to procreate - it doesn't mean a right to child being provided to you, it means you cannot be prohibited from procreating. That's important, so don't deny that it exists.

And you seem to be confused about my proposal, it does not change marriage at all! It creates a parallel institution with one line in the law books that defines Civil Unions as "marriage minus conception rights" and says any adult, unmarried couple can enter into one and be treated as married for all purposes except it won't approve or allow conception of offspring together.

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by: John Howard @ Fri Nov 16, 2012 at 22:59:31 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Marriage as contract law (0.00 / 0)

Again, a piece of paper doesn't grant those things. Lechers and home-breakers still approach married men and women, divorces can be filed without proving infidelity or marriages maintained with infidelity present. Moreover the notion government approves and allows the conception of children is laughable on it's face. If they do, they're certainly doing a pretty poor job of it - they're even paying people to have children out of wedlock. I also find your continued use of the word obstructionism grating.

I'm a hardcore social conservative with a significant appreciation for libertarian premises, especially as regards rights, liberty, and government action.

You are tying yourself in knots trying to defend a specific right to marriage when your calculation essentially boils down to a right to contract. You have a right to seek a contract and a right to seek a marriage, but you do not have a right to the thing itself.

But that isn't the marriage we're talking about. What we're talking about is what compelling interest government takes in promoting relationships. It promotes heterosexual relationships through marriage benefits because the vast bulk of marriages are sought between men and women of child-bearing age, and therefore likely to create new taxpayers that exist in a stable environment that will require limited or no assistance from the government.

My argument is that such an institution is unique in purpose and function, such that alternative arrangements are by definition not equal, and therefore not deserving. It cannot be a parallel institution because the fundamentals of the institution are not the same.

I am not saying homosexuals cannot exchange vows at a liberal church of their choosing and throw a massive party around it. Heterosexuals can do the same and their churches recognize that vow, they do not confer it. The difference between recognition and conferring is a defining one.

I am saying that there is no compelling government interest in providing benefits for that relationship. My opinion is solely about what government should base its incentives around. It has cause to incentivize heterosexual relationships and does not have cause to incentivize homosexual ones - on a brute biological basis relevant to foreseeable increases in the tax base. My position is an exceedingly boring one, and it's obstructionist only to the extent the human sexual reproductive system is.

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by: Publius Menpaean @ Sat Nov 17, 2012 at 00:18:23 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

What if they are raising children together? (0.00 / 0)

There are lots of same-sex couples that are raising children together, so if it's in the government's interest for hetero parents of those children to be married, then why isn't it in the government's interest for same-sex relationships that already have children to be stable environments also? I think it is, I don't see how it is in the government's interest to make them get a thousand different contracts when one could do the same job much better. That's what these Civil Unions would provide, that same stability to couples but without the approval of reproducing offspring together that marriage has always bestowed and should always bestow on  eligible couples.

Questions for you: what is your position on the right of married couples to use their own genes to reproduce offspring together? Do you think it's OK to prohibit married couples from conceiving offspring with each other? How about same-sex couples? Do you think they have a right to use their own genes to reproduce offspring with each other? It would require a lab to make gametes from one of them with the other sex's genomic imprinting somehow, but if that were possible, do you think they have a right to do it? Or do you think it's OK to prohibit them from conceiving offspring and limiting the right to conceive offspring to a man and a woman?

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by: John Howard @ Sat Nov 17, 2012 at 00:36:54 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

That only happens one of two ways (0.00 / 0)

There's two possible ways for a homosexual couple to be raising a child.

One is tragedy, where one of the parents has died (or been imprisoned for dangerous or negligent behavior) and the remaining parent chooses a same sex partner as their love interest. The child is still at a distinct disadvantage because there is absolutely no compulsion for the same sex partner to act as a responsible mother / father, since they already are with whichever one kept custody, and there is nothing physically unitive about a homosexual relationship that counteracts the stress raising a child puts on it. The primal biological urge to reproduce is a much stronger force than just a pleasure center driven by habit. Heterosexual relationships are fueled by the former, homosexual ones the latter.

If you were to define the concept of a "Civil Union" down to this tragic occurrence for the child as a means of at least protecting their well-being, I'd accept the premise of the arrangement, but would give it a different name like Co-Guardianship that emphasizes the arrangement is about the legal difficulties in providing care for a child rather than the relationship status of the adults.

The other way a child ends up being raised by homosexuals is what you alluded to earlier, which is deliberately creating a child without a mother and father to validate your lifestyle. This is completely monstrous and disgusting. Children are not trinkets that validate the relationship of adults, and this goes for every attempt at "designer babies" and even to an extent in-vitro, which requires the sacrifice of some lives to ensure the implantation of one. It's bad enough to treat a new life merely as an extension of your own goodness or as part of your legacy, to so while guaranteeing they don't have either a mother or father is plainly evil.

I also think the infinite enumeration of the right to liberty into a subset of rights for every conceivable human action you're getting at misses the point. The entire realm of government policy revolving around children is based in the fact that children are not just miniature adults, and therefore are deserving of protection. The natural order of things tends to create people that adhere to that natural order. On a macro political level, the plain fact is that the dependency class votes for enabling more dependency while the independent class votes for sustaining high levels of independence. Politics is downstream of culture, and a culture where children are just objects for fulfilling the emotional needs of adults is not a society I want to live in.

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by: Publius Menpaean @ Sat Nov 17, 2012 at 13:28:40 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

So you want society to do what exactly? (0.00 / 0)

I agree with you about guardianship but in the context of legal parenthood: instead of using a new altered birth certificate as a way to record who the legal guardians are, I think we should keep the birth certificates accurate records of who the bio-parents are, and issue separate guardianship papers for that purpose. But that's a separate issue from the context of couples wanting commitment to each other. You say you accept same-sex civil unions only if they're raising children and they are called co-guardianships not civil unions, but we don't require hetero couples to be raising children together to get legal benefits of marriage, and you don't mind same-sex couples getting all the legal benefits one at a time, so what is the point of that? Just to make things harder for them and waste city hall's time and to get lawyers rich?

I understand why some people are opposed to Civil Unions that are declared to be equal to marriage, I agree those are unacceptable. But these don't give the same rights and aren't equal, they do not approve and allow conception of children together.

Which brings us back to those questions you didn't answer. They are simple questions, so I think you are just another Libertarian Transhumanist pretending to be a social conservative, and that's why your objections are so ham-fisted and don't ring true. You don;'t mind coming across like an idiot fueled by irrational animus, you don;t mind tarring the party with extreme cartoonish stupidity.

Try one more time on the questions, anonymous dude.

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by: John Howard @ Sat Nov 17, 2012 at 15:23:24 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

A word of advice Matt Elder..... (5.00 / 4)

Never start a conversation with 'your notion that Scott Brown lost because of this or that is one of the dumber arguments I've seen and heard'...  People shut off when they hear that.....

Perhaps starting with "There are many varying ideas out there as to why Scott Brown lost, but...."  This way nobody gets slammed right out of the gate.

In fact, I stopped reading after that....  

We are headed for a 'Fiscal Cliff' and the country just elected a dope whose motto is 'Forward'.  

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by: Vote3rdpartynow @ Thu Nov 15, 2012 at 16:18:14 PM UTC

and yet (0.00 / 0)

but you still took time to post this.

It was a blog entry. Meant for discussions, which it brought. So, I did my "job"

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by: Matt_Elder @ Thu Nov 15, 2012 at 18:00:58 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

And my retort got three '5's.... (0.00 / 0)

We are headed for a 'Fiscal Cliff' and the country just elected a dope whose motto is 'Forward'.  

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by: Vote3rdpartynow @ Thu Nov 15, 2012 at 18:30:45 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Oh snap! (0.00 / 0)

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"That it ceased to exist, I'll grant you, but whether or not it failed cannot be definitively said." - Metropolitan (1990)

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by: Patrick @ Fri Nov 16, 2012 at 00:46:51 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

He Won't Have To Worry About Obama's Coattails (0.00 / 0)

... if/when he runs for governor in 2014.

This is the smart play for Brown and the MA GOP. Forget a possibly vacated Kerry seat. In 2014, Obama wont be on the ballot. He can focus on state issues and not worry about national macro issues. And historical trends portend a bad year for the the Dems. In fact, I'd encourage Tisei to run  again too. If he ran the same race in an off year election, he wins.

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by: swamp_yankee @ Mon Nov 19, 2012 at 17:31:46 PM UTC

But then Brown should Not have lurched left in the Senate!!! (0.00 / 0)

If what you are claiming is correct - that it wouldn't have mattered had he gone more right, it seems by extension that it did not help him to "only vote with Republicans 50-some percent of the time". He was the deciding vote for Dodd-Frank!!

Forget about being a social moderate to win. He enabled the worst piece of financial legislation since the Great Depression. Did it help him get re-elected? Obviously not. He went out of his way to vote with Dems. And where did that get him?

Since he was going to lose anyway, might as well have voted correctly.


Perhaps the fact that we have seen millions voting themselves into complete dependence on a tyrant has made our generation understand that to choose one's government is not necessarily to secure freedom.  

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by: Hayek @ Mon Nov 26, 2012 at 03:13:18 AM UTC