Littleton, Massachusetts – Kay Arnold had to pause for a moment to summon memories of campaigns past, archived over 58 continuous years sitting on Acton, Massachusetts’ Republican town committee. This Bay State matron, resplendent in her red, white and blue elephant-adorned kerchief, held court inside Scott Brown’s campaign office in Littelton, positively beaming as she basked in the unexpected excitement that Brown’s vigorous campaign has conjured up.
Outside, the Republican U.S. Senate candidate was mobbed like a like a movie star. Star-struck supporters jostled to stand next to him, beseeched him for a photo op, praised his “average guy” cred effusively. Sign wavers easily elicited sympathetic horn tooting from passing vehicles. On the ground, the fervor of Scott Brown’s base is palpable.
This slice of the Bay State electorate harbors a visceral disgust for the regnant Democratic Party’s establishment, and yearns to hold it accountable for a series of ethical lapses by state legislative leaders.
A few weeks ago, most of these folks were barely aware of some guy named Scott Brown, a state senator from the Republican rump on Beacon Hill, who hails from Wretham in Southeastern Massachusetts. But the day before Special Election Day to fill the seat of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, Scott Brown is their man. He’s one of them. A few sign-bearing supporters concurred: “Real down to earth.” He’s “real people,” “not phoney baloney.”
Back inside, allies from the sometimes lonely trenches of Massachusetts Republican electioneering approached Mrs. Arnold to pay their respect and swap war stories. Arnold witnessed the days when the Republican Party was dominant in the Bay State, and since has seen its fortunes dip dramatically, spiking up again, on occasion.
When asked to cite a Republican candidate in Massachusetts that generated such a buzz and attracted a following this ardent, Mrs. Arnold demurred. Ed Brooke, perhaps? No, not Ed Brooke. Neither had any of the state’s trio of recent Republican governors, she said. Engaged in sharing tales of those campaigns past with an electoral junky from Washington, DC, a name did spring to mind, after all: former U.S. Rep. Paul Cronin.
In 1972, Cronin overcame a 26 point deficit in the polls to defeat another a Democrat who took the general election for granted as critics claim Brown’s Democratic opponent, state Attorney General Martha Coakley has in this election.
Cronin even beat that opponent, John Kerry, in the heavily Democratic and ethnic mill towns of Lowell and Lawrence. A rumor is swirling about up here that a poll is showing Scott Brown ahead in Lowell.
Worth noting: Cronin rode a populist wave to victory, successfully positioning himself as “not phoney baloney,” tarring Kerry as an aloof elitist; the same storyline that has fueled Brown’s surge.
