Let’s Not Break Out the Horn of Shame for Scott Brown Yet
I am sure much will be made of Scott Brown’s vote for the Democratic vote buying jobs bill but I don’t see a need to get all riled up about it just yet. Despite his resounding victory, Brown is in a pickle. No matter how much he’s become a conservative darling for being the “41st Vote”, he still has a constituency to keep happy and Massachusetts is still a very blue state. As well, Democrats are just itching to paint him as a Republican “go along to get along” guy so they can wallop him in a couple years. You can bet that the Democratic Party won’t enter that election with such a laughably bad candidate again. So, Brown has to cover himself in some independent glory to give him cover for harder votes he may have to cast later.
That said, I’m not buying his explanation for the vote.
I came to Washington to be an independent voice, to put politics aside, and to do everything in my power to help create jobs for Massachusetts families. This Senate jobs bill is not perfect. I wish the tax cuts were deeper and broader, but I voted for it because it contains measures that will help put people back to work.
I was disappointed with the continuation of politics-as-usual in the drafting of this bill, as it was crafted behind closed doors, without transparency and accountability. I hope for improvements in that process going forward. All of us, Republicans and Democrats, have to work together to get our economy back on track. I hope my vote today is a strong step toward restoring bipartisanship in Washington.
I’ll throw out the blah, blah happy talk about bipartisanship. Brown seems smarter than to believe that bipartisanship is an end and not a means and I won’t insult his intelligence by assuming he was very serious about that. I’ll also grant that the vote buying jobs bill will put people to work. Like the last vote buying bill Stimulus, there’s no doubt that spending gobs of taxpayer money, will create some government jobs. But that’s all I’ll concede because that’s not really the point. America doesn’t need a bunch of jobs that cost several times what a comparable job in the private sector would cost and that will disappear the second the taxpayer money runs out. We need good jobs that create wealth and aren’t a net drain on our pocketbooks. No government program can provide those, no matter how much we may wish otherwise.
The real puzzler in his statement is the part about “politics-as-usual”. I’ll grant that he wants things to be different, that he wants Democrats to show the kind of transparency and willingness to negotiate honestly and in the open they’ve been promising since they took the majority years ago. However, as a father, he should know that rewarding bad behavior never gets you better behavior. In fact, it gets you worse behavior. Any parent knows that if you give Junior what he wants when he throws a tantrum in the ice-cream aisle, he’s going to pitch a louder fit the next time, because he knows you’ll give him what he wants. If he really wants the Democrats to do right, he’s going to have to treat them like children and be more stubborn than they are. Oh, sure, they’ll whine and kick their heels on the floor and hold their collective breath until they turn as blue as they want to turn America, but they can’t do that forever. It may take a month or a year to happen, but Brown (and the rest of us conservatives) will win because they’ll either keep their promise or find themselves in the unemployment line with the rest of the millions of Americans their ridiculous progressive pipe dreams have put there.
I’m not willing to break out the RINO label for Brown right now. I need to see how he operates once he has his feet underneath him and a little more confidence that he’s not going to get dumped in short order by the folks back home. I do want to give him a couple pieces of advice, though. First, I want to remind him that he was elected not just by the people of Massachusetts but also with the considerable efforts of the conservative base. He is likely to need that help when he runs for re-election. Second, he should remember there’s a difference between being truly independent and acting like it because he thinks he has to. I’m not sure today’s vote wasn’t a little bit of posturing for the home folks. That’s okay, but if he keeps it up, it’s going to hurt him over the long term. I’ll wait and see what he does with this bill going forward.
Other Posts of Interest:
- Susan Collins Makes Me Thankful for a Merciful God
- Okay, GOP Leaders, It’s Game Time
- Specter’s Weak Tea
Category: The Republican Minority
I'm thinking the leadership let him go that way, since the vote was already lost thanks to the usual suspects.
If he'd been the tiebreaker… I wonder….