It was an amazing election, having lived through it. The only other ones that even came close were when Romney won by 10 points by 9:30 when it was predicted it was going to be a long night, and 1990 when the Republicans swept most of the statewide offices after the odious Dukakis. But for a republican to take Ted Kennedy’s seat!! That was amazing. The left was shocked.
And then Brown blew it. Had he run down the middle road between moderation and conservatism, we would have all been ok with that. We knew what his record was like in the state legislature. He could have been a senator pretty much indefinitely once reelected.
But instead he chose to run the middle road between moderation and liberalism, getting worse as he went along, never even throwing us a bone. And so he lost the people who elected him.
I think both he and Mitt’s plan (they had the same types of moderate Boston advisors) was to win election without a large conservative contingent, so they wouldn’t owe us anything. They figured enough of us would go along to help them win (always vote for that “r”). But they miscalculated, and they lost. We’d had enough. I voted for Romney but blanked Brown. Romney overwhelmingly won independents but lost the conservatives.
I can’t stand either man anymore.
I agree Brown might have blown it, and I was highly critical of his campaign. However, Obama won by 23% in Massachusetts, and there is no way that any Republican over comes that. Brown lost by 7.5%. I think he would have maintained a higher level of respect had he at least gone down swinging the way he did in the special election.