Brown Spot

Have you seen this mans support?

The Republican attempt to soil Massachusetts’ tidy Senate election gets bleached.

In a state where only 24 of the 200 legislators who occupy the legislature are Republicans and which last reliably voted GOP at a national level during Dwight Eisenhower’s era, most pundits and pols could be forgiven for tuning out their interest in the race to succeed the late Ted Kennedy after the lopsided, low-turnout Democratic primary of earlier this month.  Between Massachusetts’ historically liberal leanings, State Attorney General Martha Coakley’s convincing primary victory and her sizable cash advantage, national Republican leaders and even conservative activists have largely written off St. Sen. Scott Brown’s erstwhile attempt to score even a moral victory in the Bay State.

While there’s no question that despite being an articulate communicator whose good looks allowed him to put his posterior in Cosompolitan magazine for posterity in 1982, Brown faces taller odds than Hervé Villechaize at a slam dunk competition.  Still, some are questioning the national GOP’s disinterest in the campaignNRO‘s Jim Geraghty gamely expresses the NRSC and GOP’s likely logic of throwing away good money after bad considering the simple political math that Massachusetts presents any right-of-center candidacy:

But to illustrate how tough the odds are for Brown, let’s pretend that every registered Republican in the state, as of 2008, shows up and votes for him. And let us pretend that the independents split evenly, and that only one third of the state’s Democrats show up and vote for Coakley.

Under that scenario, Coakley still wins by about 1,045 votes.

With Brown trailing Coakley in cash-on-hand alone by nearly $1.6 million, in addition to having been already outraised $4 million to $400,000, there’s little logic at hand for any national Republican organization to spend the kind of money necessary to deliver, in the words of one snubbed Bay State Republican, “a level playing field.”  Had the state’s beleagued GOP recruited any one of the higher-profile candidates mentioned months ago, including Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling or former White House chief of staff Andy Card, funds would likely be more forthcoming.   Such realities explain the lack of organizational support for Brown – but it doesn’t explain why conservative activists have wiped Brown from their radar.

Massachusetts may be solidly blue but the Democratic establishment has rarely been less popular.  Gov. Deval Patrick, who successfully broke a 20-year streak of moderate Republican governors with his victory in 2006, has a 47% disapproval rating, which is actually a slight improvement.  The state’s health care system, once seen as the template for Congress’ national health care reform, has been seen as successful by only 26% while merely 10% believe the system has actually improved the quality of care.  Throw in your run-of-the-mill scandals that happen in states that lack much competition at the polls and at least a pyrrhic Democratic victory seems possible.

The same scenario played out three years ago as Republican Jim Ogonowski nearly upset Niki Tsongas in Massachusetts’ 5th Congressional district.  Despite being outspent 4-to-1 and residing in a district where only 18% of voters were registered Republicans, Ogonowski captured 46% of the vote.  And while the numbers once again sizably favor the Democrat, the intangibles love the underdog:

[T]he number of votes there are in the Democratic Primary is usually the high-water mark of what the Democrat will get. In 2001 special congressional election, Steven Lynch got more votes in the Democratic Primary than he received in the General Election.  Fewer people voted for Nikki Tsongas in 2007 in the general than voted in the Democratic Primary.
…Coakley has basically shut-down and set the cruise control. She thinks she’s already won. Her base is no longer motivated. Scott is Senator 41. Obama’s Agenda screeches to a halt if Scott is elected . . .

Despite Brown’s potential importance, few conservative activists and fewer conservative dollars have rushed to his aid.  But recriminations are likely to abound should Brown pull closer than expected come Election Day, leaving the RNC and NRSC in an impossible position – spend money only to see Brown lose in a modest landslide or save for 2010 while likely losing dollars from yet another blog-inspired embargo on committee contributions.

Much like the Doug Hoffman candidacy in nearby New York, if conservative activists want to see Scott Brown supported, they’re best advised to start by doing so themselves.

3 thoughts on “Brown Spot

  1. Pingback: Shot in the Dark » Blog Archive » From The Mergers And Acquisitions Department

  2. Recent news reports have Scott saying that the RNC is giving him everything he’s asked for. I would hope that, after the NY-23 fiasco, the RNC would be looking to do the right thing for this case. Even a close race would exonerate a million or so RNC dollars being pumped into the race.

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