Scott Brown, trying to look senatorial.
Scott Brown is really just phoning it in as a candidate for Senate from his new state of New Hampshire. From his
"peculiar," non-participating presence at candidate forums, to
blowing off serious questions about whether he's being a carpetbagger in adopting a new state, to
lackluster fundraising, Brown gives all the appearance not caring much one way or another about this campaign. Here's how lazy he is: he's just using his 2010 playbook, running
entirely on a platform of being opposed to Obamacare.
Right now, Brown is on an “Obamacare isn’t working” tour, acting as a "walking megaphone" of talking points that are all warmed-over from 2010, and insisting that Obamacare is "the biggest issue in New Hampshire." But here's the problem for Brown in trying to relive 2010.
It was arguably easier to attack the federal version of the law when Massachusetts already had a state-based program to cover its own people. It may be harder to finesse as Brown transplants himself to New Hampshire, where enrollment in Obamacare exceeded goals. More than 40,000 people signed up, including 31,000 with subsidies, and the GOP-led state Senate recently joined Democrats to expand Medicaid, covering more low-income people in the state by embracing a key piece of the federal health law.
And Brown doesn't have much of an answer for those tens of thousands of New Hampshire folks. Well, he does, but it's so ridiculous his campaign spokeswoman had to take it back.
[N]either on the trail nor in an interview did the candidate make clear what he’d propose as an alternative to the president’s health law. At one stop, he suggested repealing Obamacare but letting New Hampshire’s beneficiaries be “grandfathered in” so they don’t lose coverage. A spokeswoman walked that back in a subsequent conversation.“You can’t grandfather people from something you’re fully repealing,” she said, emphasizing Brown’s intent to wipe out Obamacare before entertaining a replacement.
You can imagine the talk that the poor woman had to have with Brown trying to explain to him what "fully repealing" really means. When confronted with reality, Brown seems to have a hard time assimilating it, like
when he was meeting with a Republican state representative and his wife and called the law a "monstrosity," only to find out that the law had been a "financial lifesaver" for the couple. Brown didn't have a response for those folks, because that's not in his 2010 script. No one had been helped by the law then.
You can't really blame Brown for pretending that the last four years never happened, since he turned out to be such a loser. But running like it's 2010 is a piss poor plan for reversing his fortunes in 2014.