Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) is suddenly facing a very tough race against former White House financial reform adviser Elizabeth Warren.
And so Brown sat down for a friendly interview with the Boston Herald, a conservative paper, to complain about the coverage his likely rival is getting.
“And it would help if you guys would ask her some tough questions, too,” Brown commented. “Ask her how she would vote on things, and why. It’s all fluff, it’s all fluff. Give me a break.”
He also added: “I just think that if you’re gonna find out where people stand, you’ve gotta ask them tough questions like you guys ask me every single day.”
The Herald also asked Brown whether he thought Warren was “too extreme” for Massachusetts.
“Well I think the consensus out there is that she is obviously very very liberal. And especially when she’s stating that she’s created the intellectual foundation for the Occupy Wall Street — and you know all the problems we had with those folks here. And then the fact that she’s gonna leave blood and teeth in the street, and she’s not gonna compromise and only wants to work on big things. Well you know, we have plenty of ideologues down there, and a lot of partisanship down there already.”
He also added: “You guys understand how things work down there. If you’re gonna get anything done, especially the fact that there is a check and balance, you need to work in a bipartisan, bicameral manner to get things done. You need to work across the aisle. And as you know, just because you follow me more than most, I am the most bipartisan person in the delegation, and one, if not the most in the entire Senate.”
As evidence, Brown cited his votes for financial reform — and Warren’s own praise of that bill — as well as his support for the START nuclear non-proliferation treaty, and for the repeal of the ban on gays in the military. “You know, I’d rather be thorough and rational than you know shoot from hip and be in lockstep.”
Recent polling has shown Warren with the lead in the race. Brown was elected to the Senate in a special election in January 2010, following the death of Sen. Ted Kennedy, in a stunning upset against Democratic state Attorney General Martha Coakley. However, a major challenge for him going into 2012 is that he is a Republican senator in a deep-blue state, which is expected to vote Democratic by a wide margin in the presidential race.
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