Maybe my worries of another Northeast Republican are unfounded. I certainly hope so. This interview is a reason to be optimistic.
The key to Mr. Brown’s victory was politically independent voters in the Bay State, who favored him by 3-1. So how should other candidates court the independent vote, which in most parts of the country is growing faster than that of either major party?
“People out there are disgusted,” he says, shaking his head. “Especially with any one party dominating government and talking down to them. They want straight talk, no BS. A focus on jobs and what really creates them. They want problem solvers in office, and it helped me that I was able to show I could work with Democrats in the legislature.”
That last point has not gotten the attention it deserves. For all of the excitement Mr. Brown generated among conservatives, his actual legislative record reveals a man who rejects ideological rigidity on most issues.
A businessman who attended a fund-raiser for Mr. Brown a few years ago tells me that he marveled at how the man was able to navigate the abortion issue to the grudging satisfaction of both camps. “He directed people to his Web site for specifics, but mostly he listened and made clear that he respected the heartfelt views of everyone on the issue,” he says. “That won him a lot of points from a tough crowd.” Not exactly straight talk, perhaps, but certainly smart politics. (Mr. Brown does not favor rolling back Roe v. Wade, but supports parental notification, banning late-term abortions, and conscience clauses for medical workers.)
I ask Mr. Brown at what point during the four hard months he spent campaigning he felt he was truly connecting with Massachusetts’ voters. He instantly replies that it was the first TV ad he ran in late December, which began in black and white showing John F. Kennedy pushing for his 1962 across-the-board cut in tax rates. The screen then slowly morphed into an image of Mr. Brown as he calls for a new tax cut by finishing Kennedy’s remarks: “Every dollar released from taxation that is spent or invested will help create a new job and a new salary.”
Massachusetts’ senator-elect says he had always admired JFK as a president who “wanted to help everybody,” and when he and his staff pored over that president’s speeches his defense of tax cuts leaped out. “That’s what we need now. Across-the-board tax cuts,” he says. “A payroll tax cut would have been better than any government stimulus.”
Mr. Brown says he designed his campaign to revolve around four issues: taxes, excessive spending, terrorism and health care. But it’s clear that voter angst over ObamaCare was the rocket fuel propelling him to victory. “People got where I was,” he says. He was often asked to sign his autograph with the number “41″ next to it, meaning he was running to be the key vote to block health-care legislation from final passage.
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