Brown is still relatively well liked, but I don’t think that will last long. In Massachusetts over half the state is Democratic or Democratic leaning. Once the campaign gets really underway, simply tying Brown to his own party should push up his negatives. Brown has a lot of potential downside going forward but not a lot of potential upside.

Brown got elected in large part because of the following factors (not in order of presumed importance):

1) Coakley may or may not have campaigned well. (Or a lot of the backers of Coakley’s primary opponents were still fighting the primaries and didn’t exactly go all out for her in the general.)

2) Coakley was tied to the deeply unpopular health care reform bill written by WellPoint.

3) Even as he acts out and votes for Republican policies like Karl Rove’s hand puppet, Brown ran and still runs away from the very word “Republican” like a vampire from garlic. The word was even missing from his 2010 campaign website. In fact, it’s pretty scarce on his 2012 campaign website.

So, yes, a simple list of his voting history ought to suffice. “Compare Scott Brown’s actions to his words. He may say he’s an independent, but when it counts he votes the way Mitch McConnell wants him to — as a hardcore Republican.”

“How now, Brown callow?”

Brown was a co-sponsor of the Blunt-Rubio amendment. MA might have a large Catholic population, but it is not considered Bible-belt country.

The Blunt amendment sponsorship will hurt him with independents, especially with low-information voters who are not following politics closely. A lot of voters do not really know about his stand on contraception yet.

I was much more enthusiastic about Elizabeth Warren until I read in The Hill that she was handpicked by Dem leadership (Schumer, Durbin and Reid) and Patty Murray (DSCC chairperson).

Since there’re all DLC “types” (if not actual members) I have to wonder what the trade off or quid pro quo is, if she is elected.

I worry that it will end up like Al Franken (whom I supported financially, even though I’m not a Minnesotan). Remember how the Dem Leadership stumbled all over itself at a press conference to let us know that “nothing’s changed?” They got that right!

I only know Warren indirectly, through several of my lawyer colleagues here in Nashville, but they are uniformly impressed by her intellect and her independence. These are moderate dems and repubs.

I’d agree, but independence only goes so far nowadays. I’d bet it gets more and more snuffed out going forward regardless of who sits there.

I like Warren, but the aura isn’t comfy in it’s element. I don’t think she’s a great campaigner, but then, consider the alternative.

A lot of whoever wins this may be driven by coattails.

Hey, I have no qualms regarding her intellect or achievements, especially considering her “life’s story” (working class background, etc.).

And I literally cheered for her, watching her interrogate Tim Geithner during a congressional hearing on the bank bailouts, etc.

But, Harry Reid (and for that matter Schumer, who totally bows to Wall Street) is what I would consider a conservative/corporatist Dem (or DINO, take your pick). And, it is hard for me to believe that either of them would back her, unless they’re certain, that like Al Franken, Elizabeth is willing to squelch any truly liberal inclinations she might have, and tow the corporatist party line.

Maybe I’m just jaded. If she is elected, I hope I’m wrong, and that we’ll see the same Elizabeth who so ferociously grilled Geithner.

I guess time will tell.

Just noticed that you’re a Nashvillian. Greetings from Cookeville!

I hate to let FACTS get in the way… of a bash one of the two totally corrupt political partys article… but…

Mass is NOT a Democratic state… its an Independent [not affiliated with any political party] state. The majority of the voters in Mass are registered Independents. Like the rest of Independent voters they have the common sense to know that BOTH political partys are corrupt to the core… equally.

I have no clue as to whether I am in the flow of the main stream of Democratic Party thought – on anything or anyone – but Browns election in my little corner of the electorate was “stay at home to send Obama a message about dumping on the left and the public option” – which I thought was successful given the fact that 800,000 fewer Dems voted (compared to the election a few months earlier) in an election Brown won by 100,000 votes.

Indeed there is a real lack of interest in Obama in 2012 among the folks I see who are not black, and that may drag Warren down to defeat.

Obama is no longer change we believe in.

As to Mass being an “independent” state – well the patrician GOP Senator Brooks was the elected as well as many GOP govs and many GOP mayors, but the legislation has been Dem by large numbers for at least the 50 years that I have been paying attention. As to registered independent the rules always allowed indies to vote in either party primary by declaring on the date of the primary – and then you went back to being indie (I have not voted in a primary in the last few years so those rules may have changed). Real Democrats win 2 to 1 but need money to get their face and position out. Democrats get their face and position out by getting a few dollars from the rich and corporate so there are some Dems who are not what I call “real Dems” and they usually win in close elections.