I see Brown as a temp worker hired to make Obama look bad for two years. However I would not give him a promotion or hire him permanently.
Brown is dead on arrival for re-election in 2012. No way does he win with Obama at the top of the ticket.
Brown has two options: Shill for Romney and hope Slick Willard picks him as Veep or run for President himself in 2012.
Notice the Mittens are out demanding loyalty to Slick Willard.
On the face of things, Brown might look like a fluke win, but it’s all up to him which way he decides to go. I’d lay better odds of him retaining his seat than I would with Anh Cao in New Orleans. After all, go back to 1952 and a young upstart knocked off the establishment political figure, and that was JFK vs. Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. JFK was also more Conservative than his GOP opponent. JFK was able to help transform Republican-leaning MA into a Democrat state.
Brown might be able to do the same by using his appeal to Independents, the largest voting bloc in the state, to move the state back away from its ludicrous overrepresentation of Democrats that don’t really reflect the realities of the state, only that of the fact that the MA GOP itself cannot compete because of the incompetency that has infested it for so long under DIABLO/RINO Governors (and their willful sabotage).
But if Brown follows the Slick Willard model, just using this as a mere stepping stone to the Presidency, and intends to swiftly discard the office in 2012, this victory will have been worse than pyrrhic. I’d rather he use his newfound fame and power to resuscitate his state and make it competitive again from top to bottom, we shall see.