GOP’s Brown branded turncoat for jobs-bill vote
BOSTON (AP) — A month after being crowned the darling of national conservatives, Republican Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts is being branded “Benedict Brown” for siding with Democrats in favor of a jobs bill endorsed by the Obama administration.
Like the four other GOP senators who joined him, the man who won the late Democrat Edward Kennedy’s seat says it’s about jobs, not party politics. And that may be good politics, too.
The four other GOP senators who broke ranks — Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, George Voinovich of Ohio and Christopher “Kit” Bond of Missouri — also were criticized Tuesday. But Brown was the big target on conservative Web sites, talk shows and even the Facebook page his campaign has promoted as an example of his new-media savvy.
“We campaigned for you. We donated to your campaign. And you turned on us like every other RINO,” said one writer, using the initials for “Republican-In-Name-Only.”
The conservative-tilting Drudge Report colored a photo of Brown on its home page in scarlet.
The new senator responded by calling in to a Boston radio station.
“I’ve taken three votes,” Brown said with exasperation. “And to say I’ve sold out any particular party or interest group, I think, is certainly unfair.”
Political observers agree, saying each of the senators had solid reasons locally for voting as they did, to cut off a potential Republican filibuster on the bill.
Snowe and Collins hail from economically ailing Maine, and they can’t stray too far from the Democrats who populate much of New England. And Voinovich and Bond also are from states hard hit by the recession.
Though conservative columnist Michelle Malkin used her blog to accuse Voinovich of being a traitor, even suggesting he got some unspecified goody for his vote in favor of the “porkulus” bill, Ohio’s governor defended him.
Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat, praised the senator for “standing with the people of Ohio over the majority of his party.”
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