And Scott Brown is a self-absorbed douchebag:
If you like your debater to be condescending, snide, repetitive, off topic, rote, eager to get personal, willing to toss out extraneous comments and charges, and full of phony manners (thanking the host for every question), then Sen. Scott Brown is your man.
His dark, hyperkinetic style in the first U.S. Senate debate revealed that he thinks he’s in trouble and needed to commit hard fouls on “Professor” Warren, who looked calm, reasonable, thoughtful and authentic. She didn’t wag her finger once.
Her theme was it’s not what you say, it’s how you vote that matters. Judging from the number of times he said it, his theme was “thank you.”
I am sure this is surprising to all of us.
YellowJournalism
Shorter summary: Douchebag is a douche. With a truck.
NotMax
Maybe a teensy bit O/T, but a wonderful compilation nevertheless, courtesy of The New Yorker.
A Conservative History of the United States
SatanicPanic
I hope Warren knows the internets have a lot riding on this campaign.
Burnspbesq
I’m sure that when I watch the debate in a little while, I will mostly agree with that assessment. That said, WBUR is hardly representative of likely Mass. voters. What the Herald and the Neanderthals on talkradio say tomorrow is a lot more consequential.
trollhattan
E.J. Dionne:
washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/nice-guy-scott-brown-goes-snarky-in-debate-with-elizabet…
kilks
@Burnspbesq: maybe talk radio, though I’m skeptical. But the Herald is such utter trash I doubt it will matter. It’s the wall street journal editorial page without the wit or charm.
JustAnotherBob
Warren didn’t address him as Centerfold Brown?
AA+ Bonds
I doubt “thank you” was a mistake; one strategy is to treat a debate like you’re announcing your victory as a foregone conclusion in front of your opponent, although you usually see it during primary season
I don’t think it will work for Brown
Violet
Being a mean jerk isn’t going to get him votes from women.
SatanicPanic
@JustAnotherBob: If I had the authority to award you the internets I would.
1badbaba3
Man, that was brutal.
My God, it really is a system-wide meltdown, innit? But, out there in public, for all to see and hear and record for posterity. And it just keeps going on and on. And they can’t stop it, because no one worth a ding dong would be caught dead doing this shit, and still expect to win an election. Holy jumpin’ shit, it’s really happening. And I’m not too old or senile to enjoy every fucking minute of it.
Thank you, Metrosexual Black Abe Lincoln!
mdblanche
@trollhattan: Remind me who won that earlier contest again.
dance around in your bones
@NotMax: Well, I hate to overuse ‘the stupid, it burns‘
but I will say, the stupid, it goes nuclear!
Burnspbesq
@kilks:
It doesn’t matter that you and I agree that the Herald is trash. It’s the newspaper of record for the boyo class, and they are a key part of Brown’s support. The Herald can affect the outcome of this race in ways the Globe can’t hope to match.
Violet
This is just horrible. I can’t imagine it’ll play well with anyone who isn’t a white male. He’s trying to say she’s claiming to be something she’s not, but it comes across as judging her ethnicity by her skin color, something non-white people know all too well, as well as just being rude to her, which won’t win him any votes with women.
dude
I dunno, I thought Brown did okay (not by my needs, but overall). I think polls will confirm this in the next week. This is coming from a mid-30s left coaster male that loathes Republicans.
Villago Delenda Est
Scott Brown behaved like a douche in the debate?
Knock me over with a feather!
Or, in Elaine Benes terms, get OUT! (hard shove)
PurpleGirl
@1badbaba3: And I’m not too old or senile to enjoy every fucking minute of it.
And since the internets remembers everything forever, we can keep reliving it. (As can the assholes who say or write stupid stuff that ends up on the internets.)
trollhattan
@mdblanche:
Moynihan was senator from ’77-01, and Hillary succeeded him.
Small world, like Warren he was from Oklahoma.
Triassic Sands
I would give (almost) anything for a chance to vote for Elizabeth Warren. Given the host of mediocrities (as well as some very good people, too) that I’ve more or less had to vote for in my life (in our lesser evil system, there is always an appalling Republican waiting to step in), Warren seems to be one of the very best candidates the Democrats have come up with in my lifetime. The fact that Scott Brown isn’t the absolute worst Republican in DC is irrelevant, since, when it matters most, he (like Snowe and Collins) always lines up with the GOP leadership. He’s just one more so-called moderate Republican who is “with you when you don’t need” him.
I’ve been extremely disturbed that a candidate of Brown’s caliber could run even with someone like Warren. Recent polls showing Warren with a lead are encouraging, but, Jeebus, in Massachusetts she ought to be up by thirty points. At least.
Anoniminous
Menino, Mayor of Boston, will endorse Warren tomorrow. If he flips the ON switch on his GOTV machine – and that’s not 100% certain – Warren has locked it.
karl
I watched it online (even though I live and vote in Arizona).
Warren came off much better, but didn’t respond to Brown’s last minute asbestos lawsuit attack — don’t know if that will hurt her over there (it shouldn’t — according to the Globe story about her role in the suit it’s obvious that she tried to ensure payments to the victims).
More debates to come, if they’re all like this Warren will win.
GregB
Brown’s win in 2010 was a heavy fluke. As one person did note, his campaign coincided with the collapse of the Red Sox and all of that freed-up, talk radio man love was projected onto sweet Scott.
Warren lashed Brown to the GOP goons in the Senate.
Warren will do a joint appearance with Obama and put this election away.
Dems will come home and Brown will be on the losing end of the Obama landslide in Mass.
Lev
@Anoniminous: THAT is the real big story of this race today.
As for Brown, I had him pegged as an asshole when he refused to shake the hand of the mayor of Newton at a parade, and just scurried off. He is NOT smooth.
Greg
I have high hopes that Romney is poisoning the well for all of these other GOPer’s debates. Once you’ve heard a bad argument the raw, terrible, unconvincing way, then even if someone else presents it in a slightly better and more obfuscated form, you’re going to notice, and compare, and see that it’s really the same thing dressed up.
Romney’s bald-faced lying and flip-flops primes the electorate and the media to be a tiny bit more critical in general.
wasabi gasp
Fighting for women’s rights since I was six years old. Fighting for turtles since five.
David M
Just a heads up, the writers at SNL Weekend Update / Thursday were absolutely brutal on Romney. They dislike him noticeably more than they disliked Palin, I was almost in shock.
Rita R.
I only saw a few short outtakes, but I have to agree with some of the other women here — that smirking, condescension Brown showed toward Warren will not go over well with female voters. Warren is an accomplished, intelligent woman who knows what she’s talking about and is passionate about it, and Brown was up there, like, I can’t believe I have to be up here doing this with her. Women get pissed off when men try to dismiss us.
mdblanche
@Lev: Why on Earth wouldn’t he?
Anne Laurie
@mdblanche: Prepare to be shocked: Mayor Setti Warren is not only a Democrat, but he has the Blah all over him. Of course the Pride of Talk Radio did not intend to be within touching range of Mayor Warren, not while there are cameras present.
And if you think the bhoyos have been too dainty to “joke” about the possible genetic affinities between Mayor Warren and Professor Warren, think again. The boys of Boston radio can only aspire to the high intellectual and humorous standards of their idol, Rush Limpbaugh.
Linda Featheringill
@Anne Laurie:
Setti Warren:
He’s cute. And yes, he does a bit of the blah about him.
Linda Featheringill
Who gave us the word “blah”? Was it Pawlenty or Mr. Sanctimonious?
Hill Dweller
@Rita R.: That seems to be the Republican M.O. when dealing with smart, liberal women. They’ve been brutal to Rachel Maddow when she appears on Meet the Republicans. It’s the same smirking, condescending, dismissive behavior every time.
Violet
@Linda Featheringill: Santorum.
pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2012/01/rick_santorum_says_hes_against.html
Narcissus
@Anne Laurie: Well it’s shameful for a white person to be related to a black person don’t you know
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Violet:
as far as I’m concerned, it’s racist, through and through. Scott Brown appears to think that “Native Americans” all look like the stereotypical “Injun” from old Westerns.
mdblanche
@Anne Laurie: Besides making another donation to Elizabeth Warren, I’m at a loss for how to respond.
AHH onna Droid
@Lev: He WHAT!? That little piece of shit!
Fwiw, Scotty boy looked uncomfortable and shining with just a touch of flop sweat to me. Knowing your shit plays well with Mass voters, and Warren clearly did. Scott was throwing rocks but everyone who can read knows theyre made of styrofoam.
Maybe he still has the yob vote, but they aren’t too fond of losers. The thing about the Red Sox was that the fans were ready to kill if the team played well and still lost, but they would scowl in disgust if the Sox choked and switch to the Pats. Scotties eyes said I’m losing and I know it.
Suffern ACE
@Linda Featheringill: Santorum
James E. Powell
Like most people who know practically nothing about Massachusetts, I cannot understand how this putz can be leading or even or within ten points in the polls.
It be one thing if he had been around for a while, or if he had a single worthwhile achievement, or he had anything to offer that wasn’t straight Republican talking points.
What is it?
Anne Laurie
@James E. Powell:
He has a penis, and he’s not afraid to talk about it. There is, as others have mentioned, a considerable bloc of Masshole voters who hate “uppity” women just as rabidly as they hate the melanin-enhanced. And they don’t even have to use coded language to discuss how much they hate them uppity broads, which is a great relief to their limited vocabulary skills.
Another Halocene Human
@Anne Laurie: Yes. The state is very male dominated. One pleasant surprise for me moving to the South–less patriarchy infusing every interaction. (This is not to say that men aren’t in control of a lot of institutions… but they aren’t in control of everything, and this affects the culture on a more pervasive level. Living up North could be exhausting sometimes on a day to day basis.)
OTOH, Mass women are pretty tough broads. I guess some people thought Coakley was like that, but she was vile and the liberals/lefties had trouble pulling that lever…
The other Marjory should have run… Marjory Claprood.
eta: I mean Mar… person whose name begins in “M”… I’m tipsy. Fuck Coakley anyway, also. Too.
amk
@Linda Featheringill: sick rantorum.
Randy P
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Scott Brown appears to think that “Native Americans” all look like the stereotypical “Injun” from old Westerns.
Who were often played by Jewish actors and other non-native ethnic types.
weaselone
And yet Andy Hiller says Brown won the debate, because well Native American.
JPL
IMO, Romney is going to try Brown’s approach, lie and bully.
That’s all they have.
Davis X. Machina
@Anne Laurie:
The stellar examples of Howie Carr and Jay Severin stand before them, as inspiration.
mak
Meh. Brown was a dick, but not disqualifyingly so. Elizabeth did well for a first-timer. Three more to go, three more chances for Elzabeth to pound home the bottom line: a vote for Brown is a vote for a Republican Senate. In a state where Obama is up by 25%, it’s hard to fathom Mass enabling that possibility.
SFAW
For all youse with the “Why is Brown even close to Warren, in that bluest of blue states?” (or Commonwealths, FSM save it!):
Massachusetts has long had a large streak of redneckitude. It started long before Martha (or Marjory) Coakley, and will be here long after Warren becomes Senator Warren. When a dickhead like John Silber can be the Dem standard bearer (against Weld, I think) …
@weaselone:
Andy Hiller’s sole contribution to intelligent political discourse was doin’ a “gotcha” demonstrating Shrub’s complete lack of knowledge of other countries. Outside of that, he’s been a joke. (Just my opinion, I’m sure someone will disabuse me of that “knowledge.”)
SFAW
@Davis X. Machina:
You forgot
PolandDennis and Callahan! (Who, for you non-Massholes, are thinly-veiled-racist, right-wing sports-talk guys.)weaselone
@mak:
Warren just needs to make it over the finish line. Once MA actually has a female Senator in Washington, a good chunk of the white male Democrats who are supporting Brown now will cross over into the 21st century and vote for her reliably in future elections. Once the glass ceiling is shattered, it will be difficult to piece back together.
mak
@weaselone:
Agreed. Thirty percent of voters splitting their ticket is a tall order. Once Elizabeth is in place and doing her thing, she should be there for as long as she wants to be.
chopper
meh. brown can go negative and personal in one debate, but is he going to keep bringing up the native American thing in the next three? does he have anything of actual substance for the rest of the debates?
Honus
Warren shouldn’t be much of a stretch. I’m old enough to remember when Massachusetts had a black republican senator.
J.D. Rhoades
As a southerner, I’m constantly meeting white people who claim to be part Cherokee because that’s what their family told them (“great granddad married a Cherokee Princess!”)As I understand it, this is what Warren claimed her family told her. Can someone from the Cold Zone explain to me why this is such a big deal, and why Warren, when the tribe said “nope, not on the rolls,” she didn’t just go “Huh. Well, that’s what mom told me. Guess she was told wrong, too. Bummer. Now about jobs…”?
J.D. Rhoades
BTW, a friend who lives in Mass., told me she watched the debate. Her take was that Warren won, but not by enough to put Brown away. But then, she also thinks Obama isn’t liberal enough.
kindness
Massachusetts isn’t as liberal as the press likes to say. I grew up around a lot of Irish community and the Catholicism is there. But they’re reasonable about it. And WASPS…I was raised WASP so I’m familiar, they too are conservative but reasonable. My whole family was NE Republicans but in their view, you maintain financial security but allow for individual freedoms. Socially liberal, fiscally conservative.
The ‘new’ Republican party is geared for the Rick Perry chuckleheads, the Dominionists, the haters. That isn’t what sells up in Massachusetts & the North East in general.
dr. bloor
@GregB:
A visit by Biden or the Big Dog would be more effective in getting the cross-over voters back, but generally, I agree.
Paul
@mak:
It is difficult to understand these same voters who voted for Kennedy all these years, and now all of a sudden they think Brown is a good replacement going forward.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@J.D. Rhoades:
Firebaggers everywhere.
the Conster
Masshole here, and I don’t think Brown did himself any favors – remember he was first elected in the middle of January in a special election, he’s married to Gail Huff, who was a popular newscaster on Boston’s premiere news channel WCVB for many many years (where Chet and Nat were the married 6:00 newsreaders for years and years) and people think of her, and consequently him, as familiar and family. I supported Martha Coakley, and even as the day of the election came that January, I didn’t know anything about her personally. That matters to people, especially if they’re going to go out in the dark, cold slush to vote.
Anyway, I don’t recall seeing him on TV then making any arguments, because he was the true underdog handsome outsider and OMG truck! This format doesn’t help him – we can all see why he was not liked in the State House by anybody, and he’s an inarticulate sneering buffoon. He’s not going to get the woman’s vote because Gail Huff has been gone since he was elected, and the truck thing is played out.
Fester Addams
@Anne Laurie: Ah, so that’s what he meant by “my truck”. I was wondering what that was about.
Davis X. Machina
@Honus: The problem is, that black Republican senator was a Democrat.
Hell, there used to be lots of Republican Democratic senators — Chuck Percy, Jake Javits, Jim Jeffords, Bill Cohen….
Now we’ve got Democratic Republican senators — Claire McCaskill, Mark Pryor, Mary Landrieu — instead.
redshirt
I can’t believe I’m bummed I just moved from MA – I would have loved to cast a vote for Warren. Alas!
I’m resigned to voting for Angus King in Maine now – the best shot for keeping an R out of the Senate seat.
pseudonymous in nc
Native American in Mass. sort of translates to Foxwoods or Mohegan Sun (local) and every western movie cliché (non-local).
Davis X. and others have talked about the ‘This Old House’ / WEEI / one-truck-business demographic, which is what got Brown into the Senate in the first place.
Another Halocene Human
@pseudonymous in nc: Native American in Mass means poor person whose ancestors were disposessed through violence of the very land that rich WASPs live upon now. You’d think they’d make common cause with Irish people except that many of them are part English themselves. WASPs hate them in a sort of Ann Romney, “I thought we disposed of all of you, euuuughhh” kind of way, and jerkoff Irish people resent anyone non-white because of the supposed “preference” they get that Irish people are denied, because only the Irish are supposed to get hiring/admissions preferences for stuffing those ballot boxes fair and square and getting their crook in municipal government as payback for centuries of English oppression on both sides of the pond. When the Feds/WASP power structure invented affirmative action, it was a clearly a conspiracy to screw over the Irish once again. WE WUZ ROBBED!
Another Halocene Human
@the Conster:
Liberals stayed home or left their ballot blank because of what they knew about Martha Coakley. Sorry to burst your bubble on that. She was a “crusading” AG who pursued a number of wrongful cases that harmed many people’s lives. Her only enthusiastic base of support was the uber-authoritarian woman-of-a-certain-age PUMA set.
Another Halocene Human
@J.D. Rhoades: Warren’s not the one who kicked up a fuss about it, quite frankly.
Another Halocene Human
@SFAW:
Yeah, but Silber lost. NEVAR FORGET!
Cold comfort to all the young people who were raped at BU during his tenure, of course.
Hal
How has Brown been as a Tea Party favorite? I understand the thrill of having a Republican in Ted Kennedy’s seat, but has Scott Brown ever really delivered for conservatives, and can he in the long run be anything but the guy who replaced Ted Kennedy? MA is not going to turn into an ultra conservative state and Brown’s votes can’t turn super conservative or he would lose too much support to stay in office.
Seems like having him in office is just to say haha.
Mnemosyne
@J.D. Rhoades:
It’s because of blue-collar white male resentment of Those People (both women and minorities) getting an unfair hiring advantage while white men are turned away. It’s more myth than reality, obviously, but it’s a myth that lives on. The implication is that Warren used her status as part Native American to get hired by Harvard over a more deserving (ie white male) candidate, even though there’s zero evidence she ever did so.
Remember, Boston was the site of most of the most violent anti-busing (aka anti-school integration) riots in the North. There’s a pretty deep streak of racism and racial resentment there, and Brown is trying to exploit it.
(Full disclosure: I do not live in Mass. and never have, but I’m from the Midwest and I know white resentment when I see it.)
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@J.D. Rhoades:
The subtext is that she somehow used her native american heritage to ‘get ahead’. (Affirmative action, basically). This is why Brown kept bringing up her ‘personnel rekkids’, he wants to see if she checked off that box on any paperwork.
AA hasn’t worked that way since the days of disco and bell bottoms (if it ever did, at all) but it’s a common perception among blue-collar locals, and a big part of what drives the hostility towards non-white academics around here.
Lurking Canadian
@J.D. Rhoades: Is that what happened? There’s so much chaff about the issue that I might have missed the punchline, but I’m sure I remember a report at one time pointing out that Warren has exactly as much Cherokee ancestry as the current chief of the Cherokee.
Jack
@Another Halocene Human:
“Liberals stayed home or left their ballot blank because of what they knew about Martha Coakley.”
I’d be surprised if anyone went to the polls and didn’t vote for one of the 3 candidates running for the Senate. It was a special election and I don’t think there was anything else on the ballot!
Coakley was an unimaginably bad candidate. It seemed like everything she said and did was wrong. She also thought (as did MANY Mass Dems) that the primary was the real battle and that she could coast to victory after beating Capuano. She was wrong.
Charlie Dodgson
Belated note: this commentary is from WBUR’s Democratic consultant-cum-commentator. They also have a Republican, who came up with a messy series of arbitrary numerical scores for “character”, “wisdom”, and so forth which, summed together, allowed him to proclaim the debate an exact tie. The tell, though, was the “likeability” score (which he labeled “personality”), which he gave to Warren by a score of 6 quatloos to 4.
The problem is that “likeability” is Brown’s whole campaign. Without much of a record of achievement, or any strong political positions (he’s one of the Rs that’s running away from the party platform), likeability is pretty much all he’s got. It was enough to win against the spectacularly inept Martha Coakley, who was literally on a Caribbean vacation while Brown was campaigning hard, but it really is all he’s got. And if he’s losing that, it doesn’t bode well.
The full Republican take: wbur.org/2012/09/21/brown-warren-debate-domke
the Conster
@Another Halocene Human:
The energy of that election was on Scott Brown’s side for a lot of reasons. People felt like they had been taken for granted to vote Democratic, (it’s not Kennedy’s seat, it’s the people’s seat) and the only feelings about Coakley’s work as AG were from the resentful white men who lean Republican anyway, not Dems. It was a perfect storm – Coakley’s lackluster effort, her diffident personality, her mistakes, Brown’s superior campaign, his great ads, his looks, his personal story, his sports talk radio support and the special election timing. Coakley’s record was an issue, but for those who thought it was important were always going to vote for Brown.
felonious
The election that brought Brown to the Senate was noteworthy by the fracture of the state Democratic party between Boston and the rest of the state. Coakley was the darling of the western academic communities but had less traction in the more populated greater Boston area and won in a confused state convention. She never was the right candidate and did her best to lose the race. Outside of the “nice guy” image Brown has no portfolio and little to recommend him except that he isn’t a Democrat which many times is enough here. I don’t see that he hurt himself in the debate although I do believe that majority status in the Senate for Republicans might be enough to dissuade voters here from voting for him.
Davis X. Machina
The mythic status of the yeoman farmer in the early republic here was soon transferred to the mechanic. Norm Abram could have served as governor ’til the heat-death of the sun.
Mnemosyne
@Charlie Dodgson:
Playing the sexist card is a tricky one, as Rick Lazio could attest in New York. It’s very easy to tip the scale for independents from “Brown put that snotty professor lady in her place!” to “Brown was so mean to that nice professor lady!”
Mnemosyne
@Davis X. Machina:
To be fair, Norm Abram is one of the few TV carpenters I’ve ever seen who still has all 10 fingers, so clearly he’s a smart and cautious guy.
Davis X. Machina
@Mnemosyne: And reliable enough to have been the actual/nominal license-holder for WGBH for most of the decade. (The FCC likes to have one name on the broadcast license…)
My son wanted to have Norm, and not me, as his dad. Or so he informed us when he was 4.
Hob
@Lurking Canadian: There was at some point, but there was a more recent statement withdrawing that claim.
I have no idea what J.D. Rhoades is talking about, though. Warren has made it clear that this is a non-issue every single time someone brought it up, and she’s been talking about jobs all along.