Now why would Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) accept a $45,000 donation from the National Right to Life Committee? Actually, strike that. Why would the National Right to Life Committee spend $45,000 on mailers for an ostensibly pro-choice senator? After all, Sen. Brown’s constituents in Massachusetts support women’s reproductive choice and will not be impressed to learn that the National Right to Life Committee supports his candidacy. But it’s not the case that this anti-choice group is trying to harm Brown’s candidacy. They know that Scott Brown will vote for whomever Mitt Romney nominates to the Supreme Court and they suspect that Elizabeth Warren will not.
And there is a good basis for their point of view. Sen. Scott Brown co-sponsored the Blunt Amendment which would allow employers to deny women health care plans that cover contraception or abortion if they have some religious objection. He also says that he is a big admirer of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who is an ardent opponent of Roe v. Wade.
There was a time when I thought Scott Brown had a good idea how to win reelection. Those days are over. For some reason he thought that the strongest attack he could launch against his opponent is that she doesn’t look nearly as Native American as she claims to be. He even had his staffers out filming themselves making Indian war whoops and tomahawk chops in mockery of not only Elizabeth Warren but the very idea of civility and tolerance.
Then he suggested that a bunch of people who were supporting Elizabeth Warren in commercials were really paid actors when they were in fact people who had lost a family member to cancer caused by asbestos.
Then he started paying homeless black men to wear “Obama supporters for Brown” t-shirts. Then it turned out that one of the people who Brown used as a character witness had the following to say about about his college experience:
“I attended Brandeis,” he says underneath one photo. “Jew U. Great school. the people, not so much. One thing I learned is that Jews have a persecution complex and they hate themselves. That is why I believe they vote for liberals.”
He also called Elizabeth Warren a “douchebag” and the president “a Muslim.”
The truth is that Scott Brown had a chance to win reelection but he decided to act like a Rush Limbaugh wannabe instead of a moderate statesman. I have no idea why.
But it kind of reminds me of some of things I’ve seen elsewhere. For example, there’s Josh Mandel who is running to unseat Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH). How can he think it is a good idea to embrace Richard Mourdock after he said that rape babies exist because God wants them to exist?
Or why does Wisconsin senate candidate Tommy Thompson think it is a good idea to brag about how well-qualified he is to destroy Medicare and Medicaid?
Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Baldwin, and Sherrod Brown are probably going to be about the most progressive voices in the next Congress. And they have really stupid opponents to thank for that.
