Report: Scott Brown Bucks GOP, Endorses Cordray CFPB Nominee

[ProSense]

Report: Scott Brown Bucks GOP, Endorses Cordray CFPB Nominee

Brian Beutler

Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) is bucking his party and asking for an up-or-down vote for former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray to run the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

“The senator supports the Cordray nomination and believes it deserves an up or down vote on the Senate floor,” his spokesman John Donnelly told the Boston Globe.

The CFPB was created by the new Wall Street Reform law to protect consumers from dangerous financial products. It’s also the brainchild of Brown’s Democratic opponent Elizabeth Warren, who led the agency in its infancy.

Cordray is well liked by both Democrats and Republicans, but 44 members of the Senate GOP caucus — enough to sustain a filibuster — have vowed to block any designated CFPB director unless the agency is fundamentally weakened. This move helps Brown neutralize one of his liabilities in the campaign, at least in part. But it also slightly undermines the rest of the party’s effort to hamstring the agency — one of the key pieces of President Obama’s legacy — before it truly gets running.

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Elizabeth Warren 2012!

[Tarheel_Dem]

1. Scottie feeling the heat?

:shrug:

[Ian David]

2. Shit. If Scott Brown endorses her, she must not be very good. n/t

[karynnj]

4. Him - and he was someone that Warren thought highly of

I think Brown is trying to be the maverick again - he has also said he against an NRA endorsed bill that would make other states accept each others permits to carry or something like that.

I suspect he is scared that he will lose - after all the bad outside groups are being mean and saying he voted against a cleaner environment and jobs bills - which I guess was suppose to remain secret. How dare the LCV attack someone with a score of ZERO in a delegation where many are near 100.

Are you seeing much a difference among the independents you know (if there are any)?

[Mass]

5. He follows Warren's lead?

Must feel the heat.

[Arkana]

7. That's basically it.

He went from "unbeatable" to "very beatable" the minute Warren declared for the Senate. She's a staunch consumer advocate, Brown KNOWS it, and he thinks that by acting like her he'll steal votes from her. Of course, Brown is smart enough to know that Cordray won't get a vote on the Senate floor, because if he ever had to actually cast a vote in favor he'd chicken out.

[flpoljunkie]

3. A totally crass and meaningless political move!

[Arkana]

6. Nice try, Scotty.

You're scared. That's why you're doing this--your record has already spoken to who you truly are.

[blueclown]

8. Scott knows that this is the platform Elizabeth Warren will be running on.

And financial reform will be a winning platform in Massachusetts in 2012. Scott Brown is reading the tea-leaves. He will definitely try to position himself more to the left as the campaign proceeds.

[Arkana]

9. The Tea Party has already abandoned him.

He'll have no foot soldiers and no organization, but oodles of money.

What do you do in that situation? Attack ads can only do so much. How many gazillions can you spend on calling Elizabeth Warren a rampant socialist before people just tune you out?