Scott Brown has decided on a return to the political arena. Good luck with that.
Former Sen. Scott Brown announced on Wednesday he is resigning as head of New England Law Boston and plans to "re-engage in the political arena."
Why it matters: There are a few potentially attractive opportunities for the former Massachusetts Republican — who has strong name recognition and is an ally of former President Trump — in his new home state of New Hampshire.
- Republican Gov. Chris Sununu has long been courted by the GOP to run for the U.S. Senate against incumbent Democrat Maggie Hassan. If Sununu ultimately chooses to do so, Brown would have an opening to possibly replace him as governor.
- Brown could potentially try to get in the race against Hassan in 2022, although some GOP strategists told Axios his closeness to Trump could hurt his chances.
- More of a long-shot: running for president in 2024 boosted by his residency in the first primary state, connection to Trump and recent experience in foreign affairs.
The backdrop: Brown served as Trump's U.S. ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa from 2017 until December 2020.
All that Brown has going for him is his decision to hitch his wagon to the Trump campaign back in 2016, an opportunistic move at best. Unfortunately, Brown is not Trump.
Brown's rise to the national spotlight came as ObamaCare made its way through Congress in early 2010. At that moment, Massachusetts voters faced a rare opportunity in the special election to replace the late Senator Ted Kennedy, who had died of cancer. By rejecting Democrat and heir apparent Martha Coakley, who would have been the decisive 60th Senate vote in favor, Massachusetts voters might defeat ObamaCare. Brown promised to vote against ObamaCare, and in a shocking upset, defeated Coakley.
But Brown hadn't come to his anti-ObamaCare strategy right away, initially billing himself as someone who could help break the gridlock in Washington. I suspect that even now Brown doesn't realize that the voters who put him in office for his brief Senate career were voting for gridlock. In any case, Brown never got his chance to vote against ObamaCare (or break his promise and vote in favor of it — a real possibility). Employing something called "deem and pass," the House voted to accept the Senate's version of the ObamaCare bill as its own, thus eliminating the need for a Senate vote on the reconciliation of two competing versions.
Shortly afterward, Brown went back to talking about breaking gridlock and reaching across the aisle. He hasn't won an election since. And what does he say now?
Brown added he is looking forward “to re-engaging in the political arena in support of candidates and causes who share my vision of re-building the Republican Party and moving our country beyond the partisan gridlock — goals that were incompatible with my role as the leader of a non-partisan academic institution.”
Great. With the 2020 election having been stolen, our voices censored by a big tech/government coalition, and our constitutional rights under attack as never before, Brown wants to reach across the aisle. Nice to know that Brown would like to make the death of America a bipartisan effort.