Sen. Scott Brown is starting to hear it from his teabagging supporters over his vote for the Senate Financial Reform Bill.
As quickly as they had latched onto his campaign four months ago, they repudiated him yesterday through a flurry of blog posts, editorials, and Facebook messages.
“His career as a senator of the people lasted slightly longer than the shelf life of milk,’’ said Shelby Blakely, executive director of New Patriot Journal, the media arm of the Tea Party Patriots, which includes various Tea Party groups around the country. “The general mood of the Tea Party is, ‘We put you in, and we’ll take you out in 2012.’ This is not something we will forget.’’
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Brown’s crucial support infuriated critics who believed that the financial legislation will lead to a bigger and more intrusive regulation. Americans for Limited Government wrote an online editorial called “A Lamentation of Scott Brown.’’Some of Brown’s former supporters posted blistering comments on his Facebook page. “Scott Brown is a turncoat and I am ashamed that I did so much campaigning on his behalf,’’ wrote one. Another former backer wrote, “I am hereby officially un-liking you.’’
Much of the criticism appeared to be coming from interests outside Massachusetts. If the right continues to be disenchanted by Brown, it could hamper his fund-raising, most of which came from out of state.
Christen Varley, president of the Greater Boston Tea Party, said she doesn’t think people are “ready to throw him under the bus . . . but there’s a lot of questions and a lot of chatter . . . and a lot of perplexed voters.’’
Brown has to win reelection so he can't just kowtow to the anti-government Tea Party crowd -- which means he'll side with the Dems on occasion, and that is going to be a problem for him. Was he ever a real Tea Partier? Sports Talk radio in Boston helped torpedo Coakley as much as anything else. He's more like a pinup poster hottie for the likes of Sally Quinn.
Oh please. He'll probably lose his seat not because the teabaggers wield their mighty swords, but because he won on a fluke against a bad candidate in an off year with an electorate that was mad at the world. But hey never underestimate the arrogance of opportunists and charlatans. These guys will make a lot of money and help progressives defeat Brown, so I'm all for it.
Update: Speaking of Scott Brown, when I read Erick Ericksson's revealing remarks that hot women like Nikki Haley don't like ugly poor men, it occurred to me that many of the Tea Party heroes are pin-ups: Brown, Palin, Bachmann, Rubio. (Rand Paul is the exception --- not that he's particularly unattractive, but he's no Cosmo centerfold or beauty pageant winner.) Since Scott Brown was never actually a Tea Partier and Palin actually hails from the corporate/social conservative wing of the party, I'm guessing that these folks are just suckers for a pretty face.
