WORCESTER — US Senator Scott Brown kicked off his reelection bid tonight with a call to send him back to Washington so that he can fight both “the machine” in Massachusetts and the partisan gridlock on Capitol Hill.
“At times, I’ve been the 41st vote to stop a bad idea, other times I’ve been proud to be the 60th vote to pass a good idea and move our country forward,” Brown told a full crowd of supporters at Mechanics Hall in Worcester, the site of a rousing rally two years ago, just days before he surprised the nation by winning the special election.
Brown’s speech was both an attempt both to recapture the magic of that victory and to firmly define himself as a moderate problem solver, in sharp contrast to his likely Democratic opponent Elizabeth Warren, described as a “rock thrower.”
To Beat Warren, whose populist message has excited Democrats in her first bid for elected office, he needs to persuade independents and conservative Democrats to vote for him in November.
Brown, a Republican, mentioned his party only twice tonight. And in both instances, it was in reference to building coalitions across the aisle. But he did not refrain from criticizing Democrats and Warren — though not always by name — casting them as “the machine” and “the establishment.”
To read the rest of the story click here.
This story first ran in the Boston Globe on January 19, 2012.
