Brown 'N' Served

Last night was the first of the state debates for the Massachusetts Senate race between Republican Scott Brown, currently serving as Senator finishing out the late Ted Kennedy's term and Democrat and former Obama administration official Elizabeth Warren.  On the Rachel Maddow show after the debate, Barney Frank was brutal on the subject.

Frank pushed back against Brown’s claims that he was willing to work with Democrats, describing him as a “cog in this right-wing Republican machine.”

“A key moment came when Elizabeth Warren talked about Jim Inhofe who Scott Brown would like to make Chairman on the Committee on the Environment, who says global warming is a hoax and would dismantle the EPA,” he said on MSNBC. “And [Brown] said, ‘you’re not running against Jim Inhofe, you’re running against me.’ That’s not true. Elizabeth Warren is running against a Scott Brown who wants to make Jim Inhofe the chairman of the Environment Committee.”

“He’s not running for class president. He’s running for United States senator, and by the way, you’re right that you couldn’t get him to say the word ‘Romney’ with a subpoena. He talks about support for some of Obama’s policies, but he would vote to make Mitch McConnell the majority leader.”

And Warren made this point a number of times, reminding voters that as much as Scott Brown is trying to avoid Mitt Romney, in the end, he's a Republican who will vote for and has voted for Republican measures and obstruction in the Senate. 

There was also a very good exchange on climate change in the debate.  Brown absolutely believes in it, he says, but Warren counted with the fact that the rest of his party most certainly does not, and in the end, he'll vote with them to block any measures that would help stop it.

The same goes of course with abortion and women's rights.  It's a tough sell now that Brown has gone on record against these subjects time and time again.