Published July 1, 2010
When I edited my student newspaper in college, one of my advisers told me to savor the hate mail. “It means people are reading!” he said.
Scott Brown, our junior senator of a few months, seems to be the biggest punching bag in politics these days.
He is the Senate’s pivotal 60th or 41st vote, depending how you slice it. (And with the death of Sen. Robert Byrd, the Senate is down one more Democrat.) And he seems to be the most popular politician in America. That’s untouchable prestige in Washington.
Columnist Gail Collins in the New York Times:
We have here a populist man of the people playing the role of friend to the big banks while not being particularly helpful to the long-term unemployed. What can I tell you? The guy is extremely popular in Massachusetts. Maybe it’s because he drives a truck.
Maybe he’ll trade in that pickup. Taxpayer advocacy groups, in partnership with Billionaires Against Regulating Finance (BARF), are presenting Brown with a new BMW today.
“Since Senator Brown is willing to gamble with American consumers, he’s sending the signal that he wants to trade in his iconic truck for something a little more luxurious, something more in line with the kinds of cars that his Wall Street cronies are driving,” the groups said in a statement about the stunt.
Globe columnist Yvonne Abraham complains that “Scott Brown can do no wrong.”
For example, repeatedly voting against an extension of unemployment benefits for laid-off workers, and for extra money to preserve services for the mentally disabled, makes him a hero because he’s holding down the deficit, saving the Average Guy taxes down the line.
Nobody seems to care that lots of folks, including some respected deficit hawks, think that’s a shortsighted, destructive stance in a recession.
And yet, she writes, “No matter what Brown does, he’s a populist hero.”
The Atlantic’s Brian Goldsmith calls Brown’s a “strange populism.” By successfully fighting the $19 billion tax on big banks, Goldsmith writes, the bill might end up raising fees for consumers and hitting a broader swathe of banks.
So Scott Brown the populist crusader, the protector of the middle class, the most popular politician in Massachusetts, has pushed a policy that probably means lower taxes for Wall Street, higher premiums for Main Street banks, and less lending to small businesses.
Everyone wants to pick on Scott Brown. Except the voters who put him there.