GOP In Tumult? Scott Brown And Peter King

So he's an unrepentant Islamophobe... the Dems will take him anyway

Defeated Republican Senator Scott Brown wants to get back into the Senate but polls showed him that Massachusetts voters had had enough of him and he passed on the prospect of running against Ed Markey. But he hasn't passed on running altogether. Maybe he finds lobbying demeaning after being the #1 target of lobbyists affection for so long. So he's been hinting he could run in New Hampshire against Democrat Jeanne Shaheen, the most popular political leader in the state, with a career-high approval rating. "In the most recent Granite State Poll, 59% of New Hampshire adults say they have a favorable opinion of Shaheen, 22% have an unfavorable opinion of her, 9% are neutral and 11% don’t know enough about her to say. Shaheen’s net favorability rating is +37, up from +27% in October. Shaheen’s favorability ratings have improved in a bipartisan fashion since October, she is viewed very favorably among Democrats (net favorability rating of +80%), favorably among Independents (+34%), but unfavorably among Republicans (-9%)." Still, Beltway insider Stu Rothenberg claims Brown is serious about running there, regardless of how boneheaded the idea is.

Former senators who were defeated for re-election can’t simply go to another state-- even if they have property there and have paid taxes there-- and get elected to the Senate, especially if the state is politically competitive.

Former New Hampshire Sen. Robert C. Smith, for example, briefly tried running for Senate in Florida in 2004, two years after he was defeated in the Granite State GOP primary by John E. Sununu. He dropped out after finding that nobody in Florida knew who he was or cared.

For many voters, Brown would appear to be nothing more than “seat shopping” if he were to run in New Hampshire. He’d look like a perfect example of a personally ambitious politician who didn’t care who he represented as long as he had an office on Capitol Hill and the title of U.S. senator.

And coming after Republicans mocked Ashley Judd, who lives in Tennessee but grew up in Kentucky, for publicly mulling a run for the Senate from her home state, those same Republicans would look hypocritical if they backed Brown.

The Brown argument that this would be different because he has had property in the state and paid taxes there is a loser. He represented the people of Massachusetts in the Senate and he’d look like someone without principles-- a carpetbagger who was more interested in his own career than in the country’s future-- if he tried to move on to New Hampshire. After all, if he wants to be in the Senate, why didn’t he run in this year’s special election in Massachusetts?

Never gonna happen. Well, let's put it like this... it's probably less likely than Peter King switching parties and becoming a Democrat-- something we've speculated on before. And there's not much new in the month that's elapsed since that speculation... except this interview he did on Morning Joe a couple days ago. Watch:



He's pretty pissed off at "Republicans in Congress" and singles out Marco Rubio for particular vituperation. "My relationship with Congress," he told Joe Scarborough, "will never be the same again. They made us wait 90 to 100 days to give the most basic human aid that is required. It's absolutely disgraceful. And when I see these Republicans, we slap each other on the back, all the camaraderie, 'hey, we're great friends.' All I know is there were people who were close to dying in my district and no one gave a damn." So how is all that anger manifesting? Peter King is no right-wing whack-job like Steve King, but he's far from a liberal. His career-long ProgressivePunch crucial vote score is 8.34, pretty miserable even for a Republican. This year the score tells a very different story. For the first time in his career, King is voting against the Republican leadership more frequently than any other Republican in the House. His score is 38.89, basically the exact same score Steve Israel and Ron Kind have been steering freshmen into. The 38.89 brigade includes worthless losers like Ann Kuster (D-NH), Dan Mafei (New Dem-NY), Sean Patrick Maloney (New Dem-NY), Scott Peters (New Dem-CA), Raul Ruiz (New Dem-CA) and Kyrsten Sinema (New Dem-AZ). Peter King actually has a more progressive voting record this session than DCCC faves Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog/New Dem-NC- 35.29), Ron Barber (New Dem-AZ-33.33), Bill Owens (New Dem-NY-33.33), the House's worst Democratic freshman, Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ-23.53) and, of course, the House's worst over-all fake Democrat, Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT-16.67).

So maybe if Boehner or Cantor do one more thing to alienate him, he'll knock on his buddy Steve Israel's door and work on a jazzy press release.