Run on, ducking and dodging:
Former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown plans to move to New Hampshire, the latest sign that he’s considering a U.S. Senate bid there, which would complicate Democrats’ effort to hold their majority in the chamber.
Brown, 54, has found a buyer for his Wrentham home and is set to close on that deal this week, Andrew I. Glincher, managing partner and chief executive officer at Brown’s employer Nixon Peabody LLP, said in an interview. Brown will continue to work out of the law firm’s Boston office because he isn’t licensed to practice law in New Hampshire, Glincher said.
Whatever you gotta do. I have no idea what motivates these people (and I mean politicians in general). I just don’t have whatever sickness it is that draws people to run for office, let alone be so seduced by power they will change states to get elected.
Omnes Omnibus
I doubt NH is going to sign on with a blatant carpetbagger. New York likes its celeb Senators ( RFK and HRC) but I doubt NH will buy in.
Yatsuno
@Omnes Omnibus: I can’t see this working on any level. Cosmo also has the stink of loser plus what the fuck does he know about issues facing New Hampshire? Then again NH is weird.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yatsuno: Yeah, carpetbagging for a seat when one is perceived as a winner may be one thing, but doing it covered in loser stink is another.
MikeJ
Brown’s schtick is that he’s a “moderate”. Which doesn’t actually mean anything vote-wise, but it’s a marketing position.
New Hampster’s Republicans are among the most brain damaged in the country. I can’t see how he’s anybody’s first, second, or third pick.
Violet
Agree that I don’t see how this will work for him. Has he ever lived in NH before? Does he have ties there? Don’t see them loving a loser carpetbagger. Guess it depends on who his competition is. When is the election he’s supposedly aiming for? How long does he have to prepare? Who are the Dems running?
Yatsuno
@Violet: I wanna say he’s running against Shaheen. I don’t think he has the huevos to primary Ayotte, photographic evidence otherwise.
koalaholik
Some NH Republican state senator is already talking armed rebellion is Brown is elected.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yatsuno:
I have never been arsed to look at the Cosmo photos. Are they that risque?
Anne Laurie
Bloomberg News is a couple weeks behind Mr. Charles P. Pierce. I’m not as sanguine as Charlie about Scotty inevitably losing to Sen. Shaheen, because anything is possible in politics even before you add the modifier ‘Republican’. But the Granite-State weight of carpetbagger-ism has certainly been modified by all the glibertarians who’ve moved to NH in the last generation (mostly whitebread Massholes looking for cheaper housing and lower taxes, not committed Free State advocates, but they all vote R because guns, also freedumb). Using a NH address to avoid paying taxes on the MA jobs/medical services/public amenities he’ll continue to enjoy makes Brown the perfect exemplar of New New Hampsters.
Frankly, I think he’s just enjoying the media attention — if someone offers him a cushy enough platform, he’s willing to keep yapping for the cameras, and (who knows?) maybe the 2016 GOP Presidential
sacrificecandidate will offer him the underticket, should all the stars align. Dream big, scrappy underdog!, Scott mumbles to himself…Cain
For 54, he’s pretty good looking.
Omnes Omnibus
@Anne Laurie: Come on though, your default assumption is that things will go bad for the good guys.
Mandalay
Heh. What’s a mere $100k to an organization dedicated to ending spending?
I think they will come to rue the day they dreamed up that cutesy clever name. It so invites withering response ads.
Violet
@Yatsuno: You’re right. I just did a little Googling and she’s up for re-election in 2014. Also saw this in The Hill:
He wants to run for Senator in NH but isn’t even licensed to practice law there? Seems like a great start!
Mandalay
@Violet:
A vacation home. That should go down well as he campaigns for spending cuts for the poor, and tax cuts for the rich.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mandalay: If I went to the county where my family’s cabin is and ran for office based on that connection, I would be crushed at the poll based on that alone. In my case, it is still the same state.
max
@Anne Laurie: Frankly, I think he’s just enjoying the media attention — if someone offers him a cushy enough platform, he’s willing to keep yapping for the cameras, and (who knows?) maybe the 2016 GOP Presidential sacrifice candidate will offer him the underticket, should all the stars align. Dream big, scrappy underdog!, Scott mumbles to himself…
That’s the only thing I can think is going to motivate him because it’s pretty clear he has no clue about politics, and he obviously has no real ideology except ‘more money for me’. It’s an American version of ‘Being There’ except with a middle-aged douche looking for the narcissistic kicks* similar to the ones he got from sleeping with (dumb) stewardesses.
max
[‘It’s not so much the
sexpolitical power as the attention.’]* I’m not going to fault him for wanting to replicate his previous dumb bunny studliness – there are way worse habits – but he pretty obviously is only going to win by accident.
Yatsuno
@Violet: I’m amazed all of New England doesn’t have reciprocity agreements. One would think those had been in place since before there was a republic. But maybe NH is just picky about it.
MikeJ
@Omnes Omnibus:
You would be running as a Democrat. Republicans vote the way they are told to. The question remains, will they be told to vote for Brown, and if he gets the nom, can they get the turnout?
Sly
@koalaholik:
The state representative (not a senator) in question is a dingleberry who thinks teachers lack the necessary responsibility to have any kind of job security, but are responsible enough to carry a firearm in the classroom.
In other words, he’s a nut.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yatsuno: Reciprocity doesn’t meant that one can automatically practice. It just means that one doesn’t necessarily need to take the bar exam. The character and fitness bits and the fees are still needed.
PeakVT
NH is weird, but I don’t think voters there are going to get behind a Masshole when they have just acres and acres of their own wingnuts to harvest.
? Martin
I had an interesting meeting today. After getting squeezed by the money folks, having staff positions eliminated, and yet another position being threatened to be eliminated, and being accused of undermining my superiors (which I don’t do, though I will cop to undermining select other people because I really am an asshole by nature), I was called in to meet with all the people that you would assemble to either terminate or reassign you – and I was so fed up with getting jerked around that I was about to quit anyway. Instead the threatened position was secured, one of my previously lost positions is being given back, lots of kudos showered on me, and a non-trivial raise. Halfway through the kudos one of the people I’ve known forever kind of stopped things and told me I could stop being combative – this was all going to be good for me. I went in so expecting to tell everyone off I didn’t quite know how to back down.
I’m so turned around, I’m not quite sure what to think. In spite of all the good news, I don’t think I’m any less pissed off about things. I’m forever thankful to be employed well, but days like today make my employers seem even more like arbitrary assholes. I didn’t do anything recently other than suffer through their games to deserve the kudos or the raise, and I wouldn’t be surprised if 3 months from now they were back to jerking me around.
But +3, which I had already planned for before the meeting.
Omnes Omnibus
@MikeJ: OTOH, I could show up carrying my grandfather’s shotgun and talk about my favorite time as a child… It’s the part of WI that is poor but still votes guns. The year round residents are poor, poor, poor. My grandfather bought land there the moment that the state and county government released it to the public. One dollar an acre.
Yatsuno
@Omnes Omnibus:
Always a catch n’est ce pas?
@? Martin: Congrats, maybe?
(Gonna go pre-surgery shower now)
MTmofo
“be so seduced by power they will change states to get elected”
See Romney, Mitt and Cheney, Mary
Anne Laurie
@Omnes Omnibus: But then, as Tony Hillerman titled his autobiography, I am Seldom Disappointed!
Omnes Omnibus
@Anne Laurie: I just couldn’t live like that. Everyone is different.
Ripley
Hardcore stuff – dude’s fucking a chicken, literally.
Violet
@MTmofo: You mean Liz Cheney, not Mary Cheney, right?
NotMax
Betcha he’s extra, extra careful on his form to get a fishing license.
Won’t help, he’s yesterday’s news.
Omnes Omnibus
@Violet: Spawn of a demon = spawn of a demon.
@Ripley: That was his campaign against Warren
Violet
@? Martin: Congratulations on keeping your job and getting the other positions back and the raise. Sounds like a good day!
Seems like it’s an interesting lesson in expectations. You were so set in your expectations in one direction that even when presented with good news you couldn’t turn off your combative stance. That’s all about expectations. You were expecting to be jerked around and instead got showered with good news. And now your mind is reeling. Seems like the lesson is that having such set expectations may not serve you well.
Enjoy your adult beverages. Sounds like a fitting end to the day.
Violet
@Omnes Omnibus: Well, yes. But one’s a carpetbagger running for office and the other isn’t. That seemed to be the example being made. Given the recent Cheney family brouhaha, I don’t think the sisters would see themselves as interchangeable.
fuckwit
@? Martin: Read, and enjoy: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/ Also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2_Yi-1Ryf4 “Has upper management written all over him”
Suffern ACE
Hmmm. I know new englanders are bright folks with fancy schools, but I wonder if Brown has done polling and determined that the race is winnable.
There’s probably no small part of the population in NH who thinks he was their Senator.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suffern ACE: Doubt it.
Sir Laffs-a-lot
Plus Steve would never let you out of the house lomg enough to campaign.
Anne Laurie
@Omnes Omnibus: My first childhood nickname was Eeyore — supposedly because that’s how my baby brother pronounced ‘Anne Laurie’ without the use of consonants. It may have marked me…
@Violet:
That would’ve mattered in Old NH, but the Old NH lifer vote has been heavily diluted by other Massachusetts immigrants over the last 25 years. The state boundaries are closer here — lots of people live in the area between Nashua & the border and commute into eastern MA every day (around 40 minutes from Nashua to Boston, except at rush hour). MA’s Route 128 ‘Silicon Beltway’ tech firms are a big reason the official Libertarians chose NH for the Free State project.
On the other hand, ‘tax exiles’ (as they are pleased to call themselves) are sometimes open to voting Democratic — that’s why NH is trending purple, gradually. So even if Brown’s out-of-state background doesn’t automatically make him a loser, the NH Democrats can certainly use it as one more weapon against him.
Suffern ACE
@Omnes Omnibus: just because the Packers now control their playoff destiny doesn’t mean you have to gloss an optimistic view on all humanity.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suffern ACE: I almost always have an optimistic view of humanity. Even when the Packers do poorly.
Mandalay
@? Martin: Even though your story has a happy ending, there is clearly something wrong with that working environment. Have you considered hanging in there, but looking for another job? (The problem, of course, is that the very act of thinking about another job changes everything.)
? Martin
@Violet: Thanks.
It’s been going on like this for a long time. They fully earned the response they got. I generally don’t have set expectations, but they really knocked that out of me here in the last few months – and a number of well regarded people looking in from the outside have remarked that I was being far too patient and tolerant of things. Everyone has their limits and I’ve been right at mine. Didn’t even feel like coming in here to chat lately.
Mandalay
@fuckwit: That chart is a thing of beauty.
MTmofo
@Violet: yes. Thanks for the correx.
Steeplejack
@Yatsuno:
Good luck with the operation tomorrow.
? Martin
@Mandalay: Oh, yeah, that’s why I’m not really feeling any better about this. Even though things are momentarily better, I need to get out of this management chain, but that’s not so easy to do where I work. I’m a bit too high up to have anywhere new to go to escape it, and I’m somewhat boxed in with what I do. I’ve been trying, but I’m a difficult fit for a lot of jobs. It’ll probably take me a year or two for a position to open up for me. I just need to keep at it. My best option is to move up, but people move on when they’re good and ready. On the side a couple of buddies and I have been considering a new business. We’ll see where that goes over the break. Overall the institution isn’t really a big problem, just the particular branch that I’m in after some new folks came in a few year ago.
chopper
@MikeJ:
so he has a chance.
Yatsuno
@Steeplejack: You just reminded me to e-mail AL the deets, which I forgot to do. I don’t expect a front page out of it, but just keeping her in the loop is good.
Steeplejack
@Yatsuno:
Well, keep us all in the loop. I don’t expect real-time O.R. blogging, but we’ll all be wanting to hear how it goes.
Yatsuno
@Steeplejack: Don’t expect too much out of me tomorrow. I will be drugged to within a millimetre of my existence. But hopefully when the initial pain starts going down there will be some improvement. Or a lot. I’m aiming for a lot.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yatsuno: Let us know how it goes. Break a leg.
Comrade Mary
Be well, Yutsy! Here’s some kitteh to distract you before the big day!
Yatsuno
@Omnes Omnibus:
Interesting phrase choice, since this will indeed be happening. But then they glue it back together. Literally.
@Comrade Mary: KITTEH!!! In Jane2’s neighbourhood too!
? Martin
@Yatsuno: I’ll be thinking about you tomorrow. I really hope it goes well. This has been a big year of medical stuff in my household (getting to know all the nurses on a first name basis in the surgery center again) and it all came out good in the end, so I’ll extend my winning streak on that front to you.
mdblanche
“Former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown plans to move to New Hampshire, the latest sign that he’s considering a U.S. Senate bid there, which would complicate
Democrats’Republicans’ effort tohold theirwin the majority in the chamber.”Fix’t. This reminds me of an old joke:
“There are these 4 guys driving in a car together, 1 from Maine, 1 from Vermont, 1 from Massachusetts, and 1 from New Hampshire.
Down the road a bit, the man from Maine starts throwing bags of potatoes out of the car window, the man from NH asks what are you doing that for? The man from Maine says, we have so many potatoes just lying around our state and I’m just sick and tired of seeing these things.
Down the road a bit more, the man from Vermont starts throwing jugs out maple syrup out of the car window, the man from NH asks what are you doing that for? The man from Vermont says, we have so many of these jugs just lying around our state and I’m just sick and tired of seeing these things.
And moments later….
You guessed it…
The man from New Hampshire throws the man from Massachusetts out of the window.”
@Anne Laurie: The tax exiles are all Republicans. It’s a combo of some of the old New Hampshire and people who relocated from further down the east coast that are open to voting Democratic these days.
MikeJ
Yutsy, you still awake, and is your ph# still the same? (the one with the repeating end?)
J R in WV
@Omnes Omnibus:
I moved from on county to another in my home state, 30 years ago, and I’m still a foreigner in the new county. I’ll die an outsider, a welcome outsider, a friend, but not a local.
Baron Elmo
Whoa… is the title of this post a reference to “Run On For a Long Time,” by Bill Landford and the Landfordaires?
One of the greatest (and scariest) gospel records ever made… I’m still waiting for someone to use it to score a chase scene in some high-quality thriller.
Check it out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtjbHCJeW_E
J R in WV
Plus, you can move from MA to NH nearly by crossing the street, it isn’t hundreds of miles, just hundreds of yards.
Or yads up there.
But you still have a semi-befuddled Brown, running for a post that’s clearly above his capacity to perform. So I think it would be stupid for him to do that, if he’s actually doing well in his law firm gig.
daryljfontaine
@Baron Elmo: More than likely, the Johnny Cash version which was released close to his death, and which has been used in a longer list of media than listed here.
D
Comrade Javamanphil
NH may remind me of that crazy uncle you don’t really want to talk to at family holiday events but I can’t see how they don’t end up giving Brown the same kind of treatment the last MAhole who tried to buy a senate seat in one of his neighbor states to the north.
Matt McIrvin
@koalaholik: He’s a state rep. The New Hampshire House of Representatives is an unusually gigantic body consisting of political amateurs; each one of them represents only a few thousand people, they’re essentially unpaid, and many are bored retirees. So they’re a rich source of crazy quotes and baffling antics.
Matt McIrvin
@Anne Laurie: As far as I can tell, it doesn’t actually make any sense to be a tax exile to NH if you still work in Massachusetts, because you get hit both by Massachusetts’ income tax AND New Hampshire’s high property tax. I think it’s more “drive till you qualify”; the suburbs just extend into NH.
And with the tech firms now moving back into the city core instead of further and further out to 495 and Nashua, the commute makes less sense than it used to. (It annoys me because I moved out here, to a Massachusetts town right on the NH border, just in time for the trend to reverse.)
Chris Rich
@Anne Laurie: NH is interesting. I lived in liberal Dover nearly half of this year, from January to May, (it was just as horrible as I remembered it from the 90s),
Another factor is Right to Work loopholes which have made it the location of choice for every large scale corporate suckfish you’d expect to find. When I get a service call for Comcast, the techs come down from NH as are some Home Depot affiliate showing up to install office carpet.
New Hampshire is adept at working these angles. Another factor is rent differences. My renta dump share in Dover was around 300 something dollars, about a third to a fourth of Cambridge rent.
This may have a different impact, lots of people who are economic refugees from masshole rents who are nonetheless basically liberal.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@MikeJ:
It was the one I used this summer when he picked me up from SEA.
Joey Giraud
@Mandalay:
Re the chart.
Read this for the full story.
The Gervais Principle is to the Dilbert Principle what relativity is to Newtonian mechanics.
Nutella
Reminds me of an old story: When DEC was a major employer but starting to go down, they moved one of their plants from Mass to NH as a cost saving measure. The employees were happy to move to NH too since the taxes were so much lower.
The cost saving measure wasn’t enough to save the plant and it closed, putting all those employees on the NH unemployment rolls. They had the gall to complain at length about how unfair it was that unemployment benefits were so low in NH and they weren’t getting the higher MA benefits they expected.
Somehow the connection between low taxes and low services escaped them.
Mike in NC
@Nutella:
Was that DEC plant in Nashua or Merrimack by chance? I seem to recall it was near where my parents lived and one time when I was up there for Christmas I noticed the place had been shut down.
different-church-lady
Oh. So he’s going to be just like every other asshole blasting by you at 90 MPH on route 3.
JoyfulA
@Anne Laurie: I know some libertarians who were absolutely going to move to NH in that “flip a small state” scheme, but neither of them did, in the end. (One stayed put; the other moved, oddly enough, to CA.)
But a self-proclaimed socialist couple I know did move to NH.
So who knows.
Redshirt
I think you’re all forgetting that Scott Brown drives a truck.
WaterGIrl
@? Martin: Glad about the good outcome!
But I also understand why that’s not enough for you to say, oh great, things are good again. It kind of sounds like there’s a missing piece, some information or event that you aren’t aware of. Some places are fucked up enough that they just want to keep you off balance. Hopefully yours isn’t one of them.
My best guess is that someone figured out that they had pushed things too far with you and decided to take action so they wouldn’t lose you. Hence the giving back of positions and the raise for you. And that would be a good thing.
It can take a little time, sometimes, for your emotional state to catch up to where your brain is. That’s just how we’re built. So you’re still wound up, but hopefully the +3 will kick in soon and you’ll conclude that even though you may want to still consider the situation in future, the crisis has been averted.
Good for you, by the way, for fighting for the folks who work for you.
Jebediah, RBG
@Mandalay:
Especially with the sportsball owner connection, since as a class they seem to never have a problem with BIG (public) spending on stadiums.
ETA: And clearly Joe “Rickets” Ricketts is a scurvy dog.
WaterGIrl
@? Martin: Hey Martin, when I saw your comment just now about all the medical stuff in your household, I was somehow reminded of what a crappy year you had the year before when it seemed like you were losing people left and right.
I’m filing a formal request with the powers that be – here’s hoping 2014 will be an easy year from Martin, et al.