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Monday, October 29, 2012

"No long the underdog, Scott Brown rallies moderates" - The Patriot Ledger

Senator Scott Brown, Boy Toy Centerfold

The following Patriot Ledger article headlines Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown as "no longer the underdog."

The same article also spotlights "the most recent poll (that) showed Brown lagging five percentage points behind his Democratic challenger, Elizabeth Warren." (Here are those October 24th poll results - http://www.wbur.org/2012/10/24/warren-leads-brown-poll)

The cognitive dissonance evoked by these contradictory statements bears witness to gathering epistemophobia, the pathological "fear of truth" that increasingly infects American conservatism, a secular religion in which "faith and opinion" trump "rigor and knowledge." (Aquinas, by the way, is spinning in his grave.)

The collapse of rigorous epistemology - and the presumption that this largely invisible degradation of Truth is inconsequential - is both tragedy and disaster, the kind of tectonic shift that collapses empires.


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No longer the underdog, Scott Brown rallies moderates from his pickup

Photos

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Associated Press

U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., makes a campaign visit to Cousin’s Restaurant in Woburn. Republican Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., speaks to potential voters at Cousin’s Restaurant as he campaigns for re-election in Woburn. The photo was taken on Monday Oct. 15, 2012

  
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By Chris Burrell
Posted Oct 29, 2012

Editor's note: Democratic challeger Elizabeth Warren will be profiled on Tuesday.
Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown still hits the campaign trail in his dark green pickup truck, but 2½ years after he stunned the state and the nation by winning the Senate seat in a special election, the 53-year-old from Wrentham is no longer an underdog.
In one of the country’s most expensive, closely watched and tight political races, Brown is again calling on Massachusetts voters to shed their blue-state colors and send him back to Washington, this time for a full six-year term.
“There’s a vanishing breed of moderates to push back against extremists,” said Brown when he met with Patriot Ledger editors and reporters earlier this month. “Gridlock is just unbelievable.”
This is the refrain of the Brown re-election campaign, and Brown can be counted on at most public appearances to say, “I’m a pro-choice moderate Republican.”
The most recent poll showed Brown lagging five percentage points behind his Democratic challenger, Elizabeth Warren, but at a rally this past week in Watertown, Brown brushed off the numbers.
“I’ve never been a big poll guy,” he said, while supporters waved banners and signs in the parking lot of the Aegean Restaurant. “If I had been, I never would have gotten out of bed when I was down 41.”
Brown was referring to the lousy odds pollsters gave him late in 2009 when he was a third-term state senator running against Attorney General Martha Coakley.
He defeated Coakley, 52 percent to 47 percent. He carried Quincy, long a Democratic bastion, and swept nearly all the communities south of Boston except for Milton, Randolph and Brockton.
Back then, voters liked the idea of Brown balancing what had been a solidly Democratic Massachusetts congressional delegation in Washington. This time around, Brown is appealing to voters who see him as a lawmaker likely to cross party lines.
“I like that Scott can work both sides of the fence,” said Robin Irvine, a dance teacher from Marshfield who drove to the Watertown rally for Brown. “(Brown) is more able to work and compromise, which is what we need there. It’s ridiculous. Nothing’s getting done, and it’s hurting us.”
A carbon copy of that sentiment came from Bill Connell, a South Weymouth resident who was also holding a Brown sign in Watertown.
“Scott can go across the aisle and make the right decisions for everyone,” said Connell, who manages software for a financial planning business in Boston.


Read more: http://www.patriotledger.com/news/x1292884542/No-longer-the-underdog-Scott-Brown-rallies-moderates-from-his-pickup#ixzz2Agpo1nhG

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