How He Did It: Behind The Scott Brown Win
Sen.-elect Scott Brown holds up a Boston Herald newspaper during his victory party in Boston on Tuesday. (AP)
BOSTON — It’s a playbook that Republican Party strategists nationwide will study for years. How did a little-known, conservative state senator manage to beat a Democratic attorney general to get himself elected to the “Ted Kennedy seat” in deep-blue Massachusetts?
One man is given much of the behind-the-scenes credit. Eric Fehrnstrom is being hailed by many on the right as the new “genius strategist” of the GOP. In an interview with WBUR, Fehrnstrom revealed what he considers to the turning points for the Brown campaign, the one fatal error of the Coakley campaign, and the moment he knew they really had a shot.
What follows is a transcription of Fehrnstrom’s remarks.
A Winning Spirit
Scott Brown was one of the most disciplined candidates I’ve ever encountered. And if there’s ever an example of someone willing himself to victory, this would be it.
The Rocky Factor
I think they felt it could never happen in Massachusetts. I mean, that’s what adds to the fairy-tale aspect of this story. In many ways, Scott is the Rocky Balboa of Massachusetts politics. But he actually did Rocky one better by winning the match.
So, I think people appreciated the fact that, in Scott Brown, they had a regular, kind of working-man candidate who was out there in 20-degree temperatures, shaking hands outside Fenway Park and Boston Garden. It all added to a sense that, This guy is different than what I’m used to.
The other important factor is on national security, the issue of how you treat terrorists — whether as an enemy combatant, as Scott preferred, or as an ordinary criminal, as Martha Coakley advocated — was a very potent issue, particularly following the attempted bombing of the Northwest plane in Detroit on Christmas Day.
“In many ways, Scott is the Rocky Balboa of Massachusetts politics. But he actually did Rocky one better by winning the match.”
Once that happened, we found that Scott was beginning to pick up more and more traction. And, in combination with health care, that Scott could be the 41st vote, the last-gasp attempt to restart that health care debate and take it back to square one.
It’s what began to fuel his candidacy in that last 20 to 21 days of the race.
The Risky Move
Another crucial moment for us was the decision to air the JFK ad.
A still from the campaign ad in which video of John F. Kennedy dissolves into video of Scott Brown.
At that point we hadn’t put up any broadcast ads, and we were in between Christmas and New Year; we knew we were facing a Democratic opponent whose strategy consisted of watching the calendar pages just flip by. She wasn’t campaigning.
So we made the calculation that putting the JFK ad up was worth the risk, the risk being that people would wonder, Who was this audacious state senator — a Republican, no less — who would dare compare himself to Ted Kennedy?
It wasn’t until two days before Christmas, and a week before we aired the JFK ad, that we finally got some polling data that Scott actually had a chance of winning this thing.
Coakley’s Big Mistake
To allow Washington operatives to come in in the final days of the race, and to take over the campaign and make the decision — I assume it was their decision — to go entirely negative on Scott Brown. And I think that did something damaging to Martha Coakley’s brand.
Editor’s note: Fehrnstrom said Brown is not yet looking at 2012 and re-election, but added that Brown will begin with a formidable war chest — $4 to $6 million — left over from this campaign.
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- Vote "yea"=PLAN ON NO VASELINE 4 THE ASS POUNDING YOU'RE GONNA GET COME NOV :) #gop #masen #hcr #healthcare #obama IMPEACH TRAITOR BLOBAMA!
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- RT @mikewise07: Sights&sounds yesterday http://bit.ly/9IZlHq #KILLTHEBILL #sgp #hhrs #healthcare #hc #hcr #obamacare #masen #GlennBeck
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Talk about friday moring quarterbacking. You all need to get over yourselves.
Brown won because it is a referendum against Obama, Global Warming, and the massive increase of our Debt!
You all need to stop blaming Bush, it’s getting kinda stale now.
FYI.. Capuano would have lost too! If he was so good how come he did’nt win the primary…?
Keep up the hate, its a wonder Liberals have that title…when they are so intolerant of others views.
Brown is an ambarassment to Massachusetts. He is the death nail to progressive energy reform in the US and the reduction of CO2 pollution via Cap and Trade. I see large amounts of next generation jobs lost to this State and the US from his bogus positions on taxes at the expense of our environment and technology competitiveness world wide. Many plans for growth into the new energy economy are now on hold because no one wants to invest in the US poor energy and environmental policy. Like all actions, there are consequences. Ours will be less progress toward high quality jobs and the backseat to China, Japan and Europe for the next generation energy solutions. Thanks fellow greed driven Massachusetts citizens for putting yet another George Bush type brain in a position of power.
This is such a sad story. WBUR did an awful job providing key facts and analysis. If the people of Massachusetts understood that Scott Brown believed that millionaires billionaires should pay a lower marginal tax rate than people earning $50,000 a year (via his support of the Bush tax cuts), they would not have elected him. If they knew that many people have held at Guantanamo for years with no evidence, tortured, and then released with a simple apology, they would not have voted for Scott Brown.
The thing that bothers me most about the Scott Brown campaign was its refusal to answer key questions. For example, when asked whether he would vote for a fee on bank executive salaries, in order to recover some of the bank bail-out money, Brown simply answered “I don’t believe in raising taxes”. Who’s taxes, Scott? When you refuse to tax societies wealthiest citizens in order to pay for the programs that have fattened their pockets, you are forcing average Americans to foot the bill. Why do you want to redistribute wealth from the bottom to the top, Scott?
I doubt Capuano would have been elected. This was really a referendum against the health care bill and the view that Democrats believe they are entitled to Massachusetts political positions. The independent voter (now the largest “political party”) won’t vote for candidates who put their party’s views ahead of the public’s interest.
We have to stop this sad history in America of voting for ‘pretty’ people from the media with no brains. Just because someone was a movie star or centerfold doesn’t mean they can govern correctly or have an accurate thought in their heads. Hollywood and media idolatry will be the undoing of America. Unfortunately, this all began with JFK. He happened to be smart as well, but the glitz that Camelot brought to Washington was in the end not a good thing for the nation. It turned everyone into a teenager. One has to look beyond looks. It’s called being mature and smart.
[...] How He did it: Behind the Scott Brown Win [...]
I am a lifelong Democrat. I did not vote for Coakley in the primary, but for Mike Capuano (who, I believe would have beat Brown) and I was never impressed with Martha. When I voted last week I put an “x” next to Martha’s name, not to vote FOR her, but to vote AGAINST Brown. I did actually consider voting for Brown, but I don’t agree with the Republican platform and most of what he says. But… he is much more charismatic and “likable” than Coakley.
I voted for Obama for many reasons, chief among them the public option clause in Health Care Reform. Maybe Brown will cause the whole messed up bill to go back and be re-written. While running for president Mr. Obama said “Health care reform without a public option is no option.” I’m one of those Democrats who hates the health care bill as it stands and hope that Brown WILL vote against it. It stinks! If the health insurance companies and drug companies like it, it stinks!
I agree with Shawn. As much as all the press is making this out to be, it was decided primarily on local factors. It’s funny if you look in 2006 Coakley won with 1.5m votes, but I imagine then they saw DEM next to her name and automatically voted for her.
Also, I think far before you can say it gauged the feeling toward Obama, it reflected the local feeling toward Patrick.
Maybe we’re overanalyzing this as far as “voter anger” and “Democrats vs. Republicans.” The Democrats simply nominated a poor candidate. Brown wouldn’t have defeated Capuano, and Capuano is to the left of Coakley.
How about a no party system? Remove the D and R labeling.
Let each public service employee speak and run campaigns on what they believe and not what their party tells them to believe.
Let citizens vote on what each person believes in what is best for America instead of what is best for a certain political party!
The Globe’s chart showed that if the people had voted for house reps they way they did for Scott Brown, 6 of 10 seats would have gone Republican–up from 0 of 10. As Scott Brown said, “The turning point was when Air Force One landed in Boston.” Obama-3 for 3. Doesn’t get it.
Cram doesn’t work. Several liberal Democrats in Congress said, after the election, “The people have spoken; we need to reconsider this.” Good for them. My favorite comments of the week were, from out of state people, “Welcome back to the US with a 2 party system.” We need both; let’s remember that.