The Brown Betrayal That Wasn't
Why would anybody be surprised that Senator Scott Brown voted for the jobs bill? Scott Brown was never the conservative, tea party darling that some made him out to be.
More importantly, as the American Spectator’s Andre Cline points out, “critics of Brown’s vote haven’t been listening to what he’s been saying.”
FrumForum showed early on that Scott Brown would be this type of Republican. In an interview with the future Senator way back in November 2009, long before he was seen to be a viable candidate to beat Democrat Martha Coakley, Brown showed his independent stripes.
In a FrumForum interview titled "Scott Brown: He’s No Tea Partier", Brown portended his jobs bill vote by saying:
I’ve always been an independent voter, and when I have to cross party lines, I do. I don’t usually care what my party says... I’m a Massachusetts Republican… I look at the issues and make a determination based on the facts...I’m the closest thing [Bay Staters] will get to a Reagan Democrat.
FrumForum contributor Byron Tau followed that up with another Scott Brown interview in December, where Brown told him that the GOP would be “short-sighted to have purity tests”.
After the election, in an article titled "Scott Brown’s Win a Lesson for Tea Partiers", we predicted that it was only a matter of time before Brown’s positions drew the ire of certain conservative activists:
How long will it be before Tea Partiers turn against Sen. Scott Brown? This is a politician who, if not compelled by his own views, will be compelled by the nature of his state to express moderation if he wishes to be re-elected in just two and a half years.
Remember, you heard it here first at FrumForum.
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