Elephant Dung #12: Republican organization targets Scott Brown

Tracking the GOP Civil War

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(For an explanation of this ongoing series, see here. For previous entries, see here.)

Woe is Scott Brown.

Once a huge Republican star, back when he won Ted Kennedy's Senate seat and for a brief moment turned Massachusetts a little bit red, back when Republicans spun his win as a referendum defeat for Obama, back when it looked like his election would derail health-care reform, Brown is now in the party's "crosshairs," as Republicans like to say, a target of the right's purification campaign to rid the party of anyone and everything not sufficiently conservative (in a rigid, ideological, far-right way).

And even some of those who were once firmly behind him have now turned on him:

A Republican organization that backed Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) with independent expenditures and fundraising assistance says it will work to defeat Brown in a Republican primary next year in order to protect the party's brand.

Scott Wheeler, who heads the National Republican Trust PAC, said the group never expected Brown to toe a consistently conservative line, given his home state. But Brown's vote for the New START Treaty with Russia in late 2010 was a bridge too far, Wheeler said.

Now, to keep this in perspective, the NRT PAC isn't a huge organization with vast resources. Still, turning on Brown could lead to others doing the same:

[T]he PAC has a national network of donors, and Wheeler promised he would use the committee's resources against Brown.

"We're going to finance a primary opponent," he said. "I might even ask him to give our money back."

To Brown's credit -- even if he knows that he has to be somewhat moderate to play well back home -- he has been one of the few Republicans to break from the party's intransigent obstructionism. He may once have voted against Red Cross volunteers, but he did, as senator, vote with the Democrats to move a jobs bill forward, as well as against a Republican filibuster of an unemployment benefits and tax credits bill. And then he voted not just for New START but for DADT repeal as well. That's not a bad record for a Republican...

Unless you're a Republican and your party is turning against you because -- how dare you! -- you voted with Obama and the Democrats on something and aren't as extremist as most of the rest of the GOP.

Brown is quite popular in Massachusetts and may well defeat any right-wing challenger. Indeed, he may just win re-election. At the very least, Republicans would be stupid not to pick him, as he's their only chance for victory. (And Massachusetts isn't, say, Utah, so the right, including the Tea Party, may not prevail even in a primary vote that generally rewards right-wing turnout and grassroots campaigning.)

But it's a sign of the times, and a sign of where the Republican Party is (and is heading), that a popular and, in Massachusetts, electable moderate (relatively speaking) is being targeted by some in his own party. (I suspect that the national and state party establishments will stand by him.) He's just not Republican enough, you see -- not enough of what the likes of Limbaugh and Palin want.

Better to be "right" than to win, it would seem, even if so many Republicans crazily think that the best way to win is to move further and further to the right. And that's fine for Democrats, who should be able to pick up a Senate seat in Massachusetts if the Republicans are stupid enough to purify success out of the party.

So, absolutely, let's hope Republicans really do see Scott Brown as a pro-Obama liberal who will vote with the Democrats. (That's what he is, isn't he? Isn't he one of us? Yes, Republicans, you can trust us!)

And let's hope Brown gets the primary challenger he deserves.

Are we about to get DADT repeal?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Maybe. Yes, just maybe. There's no good reason to be optimistic, given how the Senate works, but, well, things are looking good.

Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown today voiced his support for a stand-alone repeal of the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy, bringing the bill one vote over the 60-vote threshold that it will need to reach if and when the Senate votes on the measure in the coming weeks...

Brown's backing means that – on paper – supporters of the repeal have 61 senators in favor of the bill. On Wednesday Republicans Olympia Snowe of Maine and Lisa Murkowski both announced their support for the stand-alone repeal. The House passed the clean repeal on Wednesday and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has vowed to bring it to a vote in the Senate before the end of the year.

With the $1.1-trillion omnibus budget bill pushed aside (and off into the next Congress), mainly because Republicans (who had been involved in crafting it) were going to use it to paralyze the Senate (by requiring that it be read in its entirety, out loud by Senate clerks, all 1,924 pages of it), there would now appear to be enough time to get DADT repealed and perhaps also START ratified.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced late today that he would hold cloture votes (which effectively end any filibusters) on DADT and the DREAM Act (which is unlikely to pass) on Saturday. It looks like the Senate will vote on stand-alone DADT repeal before turning to the START treaty.

Credit where credit is due: Joe Lieberman has been a big supporter of DADT repeal and seems to be the one behind this legislative strategy:

I want to thank Senator Reid for his leadership in bringing the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010" to the Senate floor for a vote. I am confident that we have more than 60 votes to end this law that discriminates against military service members based solely on their sexual orientation. Repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" will affirm the Senate's commitment to the civil rights of all Americans and also make our military even stronger.

Now it's just a matter of getting the necessary Republican votes: Brown, Snowe, and Murkowski, and maybe also Collins, Lugar, and Voinovich.

No, we're not there yet, but we're close -- and I honestly didn't think it would get done.

And think about it.

If DADT is repealed and START is ratified, wouldn't that be an incredible way for this Congress to bow out? DADT repeal in particular would be a major victory for the Democrats' progressive base (and of course also for civil rights), particularly at the end of a two-year run that was hardly all that positive for progressives. And START ratification would be a major victory for Obama's foreign policy agenda.

It would be hard to maintain any momentum heading into the next Congress, with Republicans taking over the House and the Democrats coming back to a smaller majority in the Senate, but two such victories in the wake of the midterms and the bleak post-election period would give us a good deal to cheer about as we head into 2011.