Want some more salt for those wounds? Here's FiveThirtyEight on the future & branding of Sen. Brown

[BurtWorm]

Let's savor the foul taste of this defeat just a little longer, shall we:


http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/01/on-future-and-branding-of-scott-brown.html


On the Future and Branding of Scott Brown

Scott Brown won. To borrow and paraphrase a line from The Candidate, “Now what?”

There are many potential political fates, I suppose, but three seem most likely to me:

1. Scott Brown, fleeting placeholder and short-term hero. He’s the flavor of the month, disappears out of view into the Senate, loses in 2012 when the Democrats have a credible and aggressive candidate running in a presidential cycle.

2. Scott Brown, long-time Senate partisan anomaly. Brown wins re-election in 2012, emerges as a Republican cornerstone in the Senate in a state where his party normally fares poorly. (Think retiring Sen. Byron Dorgan.)

3. Scott Brown, rising star in a party desperate for fresh faces. Not quite Sarah Palin superstardom, but Brown is immediately elevated to role of GOP icon—a party savior, the guy the GOP sends around to raise money and stump for other Republicans, and so forth.

If I had to bet, I’d pick the last. Why?

...



I’m not sure if Massachusetts—like Connecticut, as we learned during the 2000 campaign—allows a candidate to run both for Senate and be on the national ticket. Maybe Brown will be unable to harbor any hopes of being a national candidate because he’ll be busy trying to survive an electoral assault to prevent his re-election to the Senate.

But if not, he’s going to be a short-lister for every GOP presidential contender. It doesn’t matter if he emerges as a great legislator or policy mench in the next two years: Scott Brown will be known as the “guy who took away the Democrats’ (supposedly) filibuster-proof majority,” the guy who “sent a shiver down the spine of the Obama Administration,” and, of course, the “guy who won Teddy’s seat.”

You can’t buy branding like that.

[peace frog]

1. All his opponent in 2012 need do

is keep the nekkid posters in the public eye 24/7, with constant comparisons of his similarities to Sarah Palin.

Political Death.

[BurtWorm]

2. That worked like a charm this time around, didn't it.

:patriot:

[treestar]

3. It was just Mass.

With the red states - that photo could do a lot of harm.

[BurtWorm]

4. You mean like Bush's dodging the Vietnam war in the Texas Guard?

That kind of harm in the red states?

[peace frog]

5. He's the next not-ready-for-prime-time

male version of Palin. High initial excitement at a pretty new face, horror and aversion once his true nature is exposed.

[BurtWorm]

7. We Dems really know how to read the crowd, don't we?

[peace frog]

8. In the case of Brown/Palin

yes.

[BurtWorm]

12. Which is why Brown won Teddy's seat, I suppose.

And Palin wound up on the best-seller list for two months and counting.

[peace frog]

13. Not speaking of MA

Brown will crash and burn nationally just as Palin did.

[BurtWorm]

14. I trust MA more than I do USA in most cases.

If MA is dumb enough to give a tea partier Teddy's seat, what makes you so sure USA has the smarts not to be taken in by him?

[peace frog]

15. Brown is Sarah Palin with a bit more testosterone

He will fail sensationally in the glare of national scrutiny just as Palin did.

[nykym]

6. My Thoughts on Scot Brown

and his rise, it will be short lived. He has embraced the Tea Party although he denies it. How long will it be till the Tea Party is ready to eat him alive for not representing their principles. How long till he falls in lock step with his Republican overlords?

[johnlal]

9. He's better than Palin or Huckabee. n/t

[hlthe2b]

10. Sarah Palin must be privately fuming....

Because this guy is going to get her previous limelight.... big time.

[Octafish]

11. Bingo!

Not even Diebold can save Sarah.