“It’s almost like déjà vu,” says former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown of his underdog battle with John Sununu and the GOP establishment over the nomination for US Senate in New Hampshire.
The reference is to Brown’s landmark upset of Martha Coakley in their 2010 showdown for the seat left open by Ted Kennedy’s death. “Remember when I ran and took back the so-called Kennedy seat and stopped the Democrat super majority? They also told me I shouldn't be running,” Brown recalls. “‘It's the Democrat seat, it's the Kennedy seat.’ No, it's the people's seat. And it's the same thing.”
Not quite. While the Massachusetts Democratic machine was clearly caught napping in 2010 (reflecting the campaign somnolence of their nominee), Brown beat a relatively obscure pol from Western Massachusetts, not a real or surrogate Kennedy. In Sununu, he faces a former US senator who by Brown’s own account is regularly mistaken for well-liked members of his famous New Hampshire political family. “People don't know it's John,” he reports. “They think it's Chris, the very popular [former] governor. I say, ‘it's not Chris.’ They go, ‘[is it] John the father’ [and former governor]? ‘No, no, not him.”
This confusion seems problematic for Brown, but he insists “people don't like dynasties. It's also not a monarchy. We're celebrating our 250th and respectfully, those days are long gone.” (Does this mean Brown has a bunch of “NO KING” signs stashed in his garage? “No, we will leave that to others.”)
Time stops for no man, and the 16 years elapsed since Brown’s big upset may have eroded some of his strengths. He was a fresh face in 2010 with a triumphant life story and an array of timely props - the truck, the barn coat, the guitar. He had never lost an election. But he was beaten by Elizabeth Warren in 2012 and Jeanne Shaheen in 2014, and recent polling has him lagging well behind Sununu with a favorability rating underwater by 18 points.
Then again, Sununu’s numbers are 14 points in the red, and his strongly/somewhat unfavorable total is higher than Brown’s. Which brings us to a major similarity between the 2010 special and this year’s New Hampshire dust-up that suggests holding off on betting the farm on Sununu.
The Brown/Coakley race was in large part a referendum on Obamacare, then nearing the finish line in Washington. Exit polling conducted by a Republican firm found 48 percent of voters said the health care controversy was propelling their decision; 39 percent said they backed Brown because he opposed Obamacare.
There’s every reason to think the incumbent president’s policies will be the focal point again this fall. And while President Trump – who has endorsed Sununu, touching off a so-far futile effort by GOP insiders to force Brown from the race – enjoys 85% approval among New Hampshire Republicans, unenrolled voters who are free to vote in the primary can’t stand him (36-64% disapproval).
Courting them is tricky business for Brown, already labeled a turncoat by some far-right Trumpers for daring to say Trump “bears responsibility” for the January 6 riot on the Capitol. (He later tried to patch things up with Trump World but, like the “peace talks” with Iran, that detente fell apart over their extreme demands for Brown’s self-abasement.) In our interview, Brown slammed the Republican-controlled Senate and House for failing to “do their own damn jobs” by keeping the government open, and said it was absurd for the party to “tell New Hampshire how to vote,” citing the disastrous nomination of Don Bolduc to challenge Sen. Maggie Hassan in 2022 - all without mentioning you-know-who.
And Brown is eager to highlight the groveling implicit in Sununu winning the Trump endorsement, despite a past history of Trump criticism that makes Brown’s comments on January 6th seem like a love letter. Asked about his vocal support for congressional authorization under the War Powers Resolution before deployment of American troops in Iran, a legal step the White House insists is unnecessary, Brown drew attention to Sununu’s relative reticence; he makes no mention of the issue on his website, and there is no online record of a definitive statement.
“I've always called balls and strikes, and as someone who served in the military, I don't want another Iraq or Afghanistan,” says Brown. “That's the difference between John and me. He got that endorsement from President Trump. He's going to have to do all that bidding.”
Will rhetoric like that be enough to ignite a 2010-style surge of independents and Trump-weary Republicans on September 8?
Or as Yogi Berra might put it – could it be déjà vu all over again?
