The (hehehehe, in your face, MassDem bosses!) Scott Brown who's a Senator from MA, that is. Where does he stand? I was willing to be he'd be fairly socially liberal and his coastie version of "economic conservative" would be a bit less Reaganesque than I'd like -- and I was okay with that: we are talking about Massachussetts, after all, a state that leans Left and they deserve to get their kind of guy. It's gravy if he'll stand up for some issues I'd like to see get stood up to. (I can't even count on both of Indiana's Senators to do that. They often cancel out). And so on and stereotypically so forth, yadda-yadda.
I was wrong. I owe Bay Staters something of an apology (still, it's not as if I'd lied like an Edwards). Scott Brown looks to be all-round conservative; as VoteMatch puts it, "Hard-Core Conservative." I don't know how "hard core" I'd rate him (he could be better on guns, for instance), but on their scorecard,* he's certainly over there on the right side. This makes the election outcome all the more interesting.
I would not be in a big hurry to read too much into it; I think he got elected on worries over the Federal health-care legislation and voter disgust at being taken for granted. And I'm okay with that; as a breed, politicians aren't generally good for much but they can, eventually, figure out which way the wind is blowing and start blowing themselves the same way. Er, did that come out right?
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* Scroll down and you'll find the familiar diamond, left-right on the horizontal axis; weirdly, they have the vertical running from "libertarian" to "populist." I guess the only tyranny they recognize is the tyranny of the masses?
For what it's worth, Brown was given an "A" rating by the NRA.
ReplyDeleteRasmussen's analysis indicates the two prime motivators for the Brown supporters was Taxes and National Security. Seems they really didn't like giving the Crotch-bomber Miranda rights.
I've a post about the Rasmussen report.
http://crucis-court.blogspot.com/2010/01/wsj-message-of-massachusetts.html
Among those that mentioned 2A at all, the anti-gun Cape Cod "newspaper" was very down on Brown for his pro 2A stance. On the west end of the state there were quite a few mentions without comment. Which was probably the best thing for Brown in a state that has been so heavily propagandized.
ReplyDeleteRemember, we have pretty much kept the anti-gun/pro-crime side at bay for almost a half century. We are winning, a little bit at a time.
So while the 2A issues are critically important, sometimes you have to look at other issues and see if an otherwise suitable candidate is likely to be educable. Because most of those off the far end of the political scale are about as smart as a fence post - and definitely not educable in any sense of the word.
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