Hundreds greet Brown in Hyannis

The red, white and blue signs. Chants of "Yes We Can." People of all ages and races clamoring for one glance at the candidate.

It was state Sen. Scott Brown — not President Barack Obama — who received the rock star treatment yesterday in Hyannis, as several hundred supporters lined Main Street to cheer the Republican hopeful for the U.S. Senate on to victory against state Attorney General Martha Coakley.

The hefty turnout surprised some people, including police officers, as Main Street was down to one lane in spots and Brown supporters crowded in the street caused frequent traffic backups.

The crowd began forming around 1 p.m. and waited for almost two hours before Brown arrived, as the car horns continually honked in support of the Wrentham resident.

"This shows that people are tired of the same old, same old," said Priscilla Olson of West Dennis. "It sends the message that the ordinary citizen on the street is sick and tired of the political rhetoric."

People in the crowd were energized, shouting out "And this is the bluest state in the union," and "This is the start of a true revolution."

Brown has also managed to tap into the youth vote, as evidenced by members of the Nauset Young Republicans who attended yesterday's event.

Brandon Bausch, 17, joined Adria and Gillian Bridgwood, 17 and 16, all from Brewster, and said Brown has rallied young people on the Cape.

"If Scott Brown has the youth of Massachusetts, which is the most liberal state, it sends a message that things need to change," Bausch said.

Brown's bus pulled in front of Puff the Magic Dragon on Main Street at 2:45 p.m. He walked out to loud cheers and stood in the back of a pickup truck to address the crowd with a megaphone.

Brown criticized his Democratic challenger for her "vicious" attack ads and said he shares the same position on abortion as the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.

Although he said "Martha Coakley is now the politics of destruction," Brown thanked his supporters for turning what many thought would be a lopsided victory for Coakley into a close race.

Brown walked the length of Main Street, meeting and greeting supporters, before entering Tommy Doyle's Irish Pub.

Although the crowd was made up of mostly Cape residents, John Evans flew up from Houston, Texas, to support Brown.

"Years ago here in 1773, there was a party in the harbor and Massachusetts led the way for the whole country," Evans said, referring to the Boston Tea Party. "We're hoping we can do it again."

Coakley spent her day campaigning at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in Dorchester and then Melrose and the North Shore.

>> Electing moderate Republicans in Blue States is a good thing - A GOOD THING - not a bad thing. <<

Well, depends on what you mean by "moderate". If you mean a slightly conservative Scott Brown getting elected over socialist Martha Coakley is a "good thing", I would agree. But if you think we gained any advantage from electing DIABLOs like Arlen Specter, Jim Jeffords, and Linc Chafee (all allegedly "moderate" according to the media) in "blue states", I disagree. The only thing they "delivered" was a liberal majority

>> Where we screw up completely is in the Red States - why don’t we have 2 DeMints from South Carolina? Why not 2 Coburns? The problem is the Dorgans, Grahams and Nelsons. If we were nominating and electing conservative Republicans in red states across the board with a smattering of moderates in blue states, we would have 70 SEVENTY seats in the Senate. <<

Well, from the math I'm looking at, if you only bother to elect conservatives in so called "red states" that opposed Obama, you're looking at a MAXIMUM limit of 44 conservative Senators if got a 100% perfect winning conservative streak for BOTH Senate seats in EVERY "red" state. I count 22 states that voted Republican nationally in 2008. The remaining 56 "blue states" states would have moderate-to-liberal Senators under your plan.

Seems to me the key to a conservative majority is when we elected conservatives in Dem majority states like Michigan, Illinois, and Pennsyvania back in the 90s -- not when we decided "Republicans" to the left of Hillary Clinton are acceptable because their state happens to have voted for a Democrat President.

I'm sorry....I'm pretty humorless this past year. Here's one for ya............he could have a d*ck growing out of his forehead...........and if he upheld the Constitution, I would back him (that's about as much humor as I can muster) You should of seen the 'hate' messages I received when I challenged a 'football' thread a couple of weeks ago! Because afterall, that's serious stuff. Anyway, I appreciate at all attempts at humor .... so sorry if I'm not on track.

I agree that it’s important to get Brown elected, and that anything that he does, even on the issue of abortion, would be infinitely better than anything any Dem does, and that’s why I contributed to his campaign, even though I’m not frm Massachusetts.

However, I think it’s important for the GOP to keep its pro-life commitment, because once that weakens, I think it will somehow let in many other completely unrelated left-wing positions and make them openly acceptable to the party honchos and therefore candidates. While there may not be much actual difference between the liberal wing of the GOP and the Dems, the fact that the GOP’s official positions are fundamentally conservative does offer some protection against creeping Dem-itis.

I just don’t want to see Brown being used as an excuse for pushing the “big tent” theory, which means watering down official GOP positions on abortion and everything else to the point that they are meaningless and we have no opposition party at all left in this country.

“I count 22 states that voted Republican nationally in 2008. The remaining 56 “blue states” states would have moderate-to-liberal Senators under your plan”

Don’t you think using the 2008 election is a bit misleding? And using Presidential results? There is no reason why we couldn’t elect 4 reasonably conservative senators from NC/VA. Writing off NC and VA (for example) as permanently blue is a little extreme, don’t ya think?

My point is simply this: the Democrats are struggling with their marginal Senators (Lincoln, Nelson) to scrape together 60 votes. Yet liberals make up less than 20% of the population, so how do they get so close in the first place? Answer: they have done a good job of fielding liberal candidates where liberals can win, and moderate candidates where liberals cannot win. The GOP has run too many moderates where conservatives can win, and too many conservatives where conservatives cannot win. Liberals make up less than 20% of the pop yet the Dums have 60% of the Senate!!! If the conservative party was as good as the liberal party at matching candidates to constituents, the GOP should have no problem getting 70% of the Senate, since conservaties make up over 40% of the population.

Most folks on this forum would call Giuliani or Pataki RINO’s; but there cannot be any doubt that the interests of the country (and the GOP) would be better served if one of them were the NY senator rather than Schmuck Schumer? Sure it would be even better if a NY version DeMint were the Senator rather than Pataki, but there is no NY-DeMint and if there were he wouldn’t win.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, a lot of things went right to get Brown to this point.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.