The right wing tea party extremist Republican Party is filled with a bunch of hypocrites, the biggest one being pretty boy Scott Brown.  The continual smear campaign funded be Karl Rove, Grover Norquist, the Koch brother’s and Tea party against Elizabeth Warren is just another example that they will do anything to keep this radical party in power.  Pretty Boy Brown brings in the heavy weights from the right wing (no pun intended) and then proclaims himself independent.   The voters of Mass. are not that stupid Scotty Boy.  We know that when it gets down to the nitty gritty you will vote for Mitch and the radical right wing agenda.   This includes supporting the likes of Akin and Murdock who will be sitting next to you in the Right Wing Republican Caucus, voting to have Mitch the leader of the Senate.  And now this you hypocrite Brown, taking money from those very insurance companies, that you accuse Elizabeth Warren of supporting!  It is obvious that you have no knowledge of bankruptcy law and most likely very little knowledge of real estate law, where is your client list.  You are going to pay on Election Day and you will now be able to go back to your modeling career.  

When the Supreme Court discusses Affirmative Action, they will likely talk about Elizabeth Warren as an example of reasons to discontinue the policy.  White for 38 years, then suddenly pulls out 'family lore' to claim discrimination worthy of favored status for hiring?   I say "Thank you Elizabeth" for your shining example!

Another tip for Brown: Tell Americans for Tax Reform to stop putting flyers in my mailbox that obviously airbrush foam and fake cold sores at the corners of Elizabeth Warren's mouth. These tactics are not going to work with me or any other thinking voter. It's not a beauty contest -remember?

You were right about one thing, we do live in a smart state and we can make up our own minds about counts and matters to us, we don't need your "help". Oh yeah and those issues you bring up do matter. She's a liar

The best advice to Scott Brown is to NOT take advice from Scot Lehigh. Scot's made a name for himself by penning many columns that reveal the flaws of Republicans, as he sees them.  Generally, he advises the Republican in question to abandon his principles and to ork with the likes of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.  This would be suicide, because Reid is the problem that a GOP controlled senate would solve.  Scott Brown cannot declare opposition to Reid as his central motive because Massachusetts is a radically left wing state.  So he must come across as the "moderate", and he seems very much up to doing that.

Is anyone else out here wondering why Scot puts all his energy into critiqueing Romney and Brown, while the Obama panic mode is in full swing?  The news on the President's incompetence on the Libya attacks is now out there for the world to see.  Actual communications that came to the White House, in real time, as the attacks were commencing.  These emails said that terrorists were attacking.  Yet the president and his minions stayed on the "video caused it" line for two weeks.  the President also flew to Vegas for a fund raising event, the very next day, after 4 Americans were killed.

Scot is part of the "whistling while Libya burns" media, which is doing its bidding for the president by ignoring these facts.  If attacking Scott Brown with snark is a more vital issue that the President's fumbling here is more important to Scot, than he is clearly doing his part to keep the Obama nightmare going.

We have a 16 trillion dollar debt, Elizabeth Wareen NEVER addresses this issue, she talks about investing(spending) in education, infrastructure, all on the tax payer's dime. I have never heard her talk about the private sector. She believes big government is the answer to our problems. Seems like a nice lady, but has no clue about life outside of Harvard.

This election cycle seems to have lasted about three months too long.  Distortions and outright lies have been repeated too often, and anything approaching empirical reality has been totally compromised.  If something is said often enough, it can, in a perverse way, become "real".  The tsunami of negative ads in the Brown-Warren campaign has been enough to make us all sick.  And consider the impact on voting.  There seems to be a possibility that some large swath of voters will be voting based on emotional attachments to either the notion of "individualism", or "collectivism", with neither topic clearly defined.  And those votes will be cast with precious little in the way of a clear appraisal of the actual person who is getting the vote.  The potential, then, is that is that someone may cast a vote for a person who will, in fact, produce the exact opposite result as the voter intends.  The vote for Brown, as a champion of the middle class, would appear to be one example of that type of vote.

This is more than a tongue in cheek column less than 2 weeks before election day.  It is a sad commentary on some of the shannigans in this race.  The last debate probably is not going to change many minds.  Scott Brown is who he says he is, namely a do anything to win politician including vilifying an accomplished teacher without any basis.  Last night on Channel 2's Emily Rooney's show a very young worker in Scott Brown's campaign from Medfield was asked to expand on his candidacy.  "He's a nice guy and we live in taxachusetts."  I'll leave the former alone but Massachusetts is 11th in taxation while being 3rd in prosperity.  She had it wrong and is not even aware of what a great state this is. If Massachusetts were a country it would be in the top 5 countries in educational achievement.  Further she insisted he is helping small businesses even in the face of his backing from wayward financiers and bankers and how he casts his votes.  So there is somewhere between 40 to 48% who will vote for him because they have not looked up his actual voting record and ignore who gives him money or what groups supports him.  I harken back to the great Jerry Williams one of the feistiest radio hosts who sided with the little guys.  He would point out all the wrongheaded and corrupt actions of some politicians and then end with the phrase:  "But he is a nice guy."  Jerry's energy in insisting on showing up phonies is what came to my mind.  He would have had a field day with Scott Brown. 

It does seem a fairly simple proposition for Mass voters.  While Brown may indeed be a moderate the question becomes do you vote for him and possibly give the Republican's control of the Senate.  It would seem to me a dangerous proposition to give the current throw back party control.  This is not the party of Eisenhower or even Dick Nixon.  This party sits upon a belief of anti-science, anti-intellectualism, anti-women's choice, anti-womens control over their own health in general.  The neo-cons at the highest level seek further US adventures and expansion.. Economically it is more pro-corporate control albeit only slightly more than the Dems. but enough to make matters worse for the average worker. 

I suppose if one wishes to take these same positions then Scott is your man, if not you have no other choice than to vote for Warren.  Scott seems an amiable fellow but I have no desire to have my wife and daughters lives ruled by the southern Taliban of the US.  This amalgam of religious politicians from the south who believe they speak the mind of god.  I'd prefer to take my chances with science and rational thought even with all of its fallacies. 

In fact his whole election seems to be about exactly that.  Do we return to a time when men were men and women and children were chattel, back to the gilded age of what's good for the Vanderbilts is good for America.  Frankly I don't care what you folks pick but if you take the backward choice I'd sure like to come back in a hundred years and see how far the, I do it on my own,  mighty mouths have fallen.

I should have thought that new radio ads of Scott-The-Moderate (Brown), the ones that make him appear as the Senator from Planned Parenthood  and Contraception, USA, would have allayed the fears of Scott-The-Progressive (Lehigh). I'm sure that was Scott-The-Moderate’s intent when he approved them. But of course those despicable, extreme, pandering ads did not win for Scott-The-Moderate the hearts and minds of “progressives". Rather, those radio ads earned Scott-The-Moderate contempt, not only from “progressives” but also from of those like me who took down our Brown yard signs as soon as we heard them.   I have a question for both Scotts: What business (much less right) does the federal government have extracting taxes from hard-working fisherman in Alaska, or farmers in Kansas, or coal miners in West Virginia, or electricians in Massachusetts and channeling those confiscated revenues to an ideologically extreme, out-of-the-mainstream, money-making entity like Planned Parenthood that harms women and kills babies? That is hardly a proper role for government.  And why doesn’t Scott-The-Moderate make this case?  Like Scott-The-Progressive, I too have some advice for Scott-The-Moderate. First: ignore campaign tips from “progressives” like Scott Lehigh; the Left is not with you and never will be, and your efforts to appeal to them are unseemly and enervate your base. Second: to thine own self be true. The country is broke. Government has grown too big, wasteful, and expensive. Stick with your message of low taxes and, stay off the social issues, at least until you get on the right side of them.

Ideally, it is too late for the boy senator. Upon being elected, he immediately sprinted to the welcoming robes of mitch mcconnell to pledge his allegiance to all things related to this ogre minority leader who has done everything possible to obstruct reform in our country. Excellent research skills scotty!

However, now that he is in real shape to be our former senator...which can't come soon enough....the boy senator is declaring himself an "independent"....because....? Oh, I see...he wants to convince the apparently (in his mind), dumb citizens of Massachusetts that was not him but someone else.

There is a story out there about why the chameleon could not change colors....had a reptile dysfunction. The sameness came be said of the boy senator...he had a republican dysfunction....

Scott the Cosmo model doesn't have the guts to do any of the things that would get him re-elected by his constituents.  He's back to taking money for filing house mortgages.

Scot, You are right on the spot - thank you. As a someone inclined to vote for the fiscally conservative candidate (and by that I mean deficit and spending reductions) I am very disappointed in Scott Brown's campaign. He has only tried to convince me to not vote for Elizabeth Warren, but he has given no reason for me to support him. At this point, it is most likely I will leave my vote for senator blank.

well said - Scott is a phony - Mr moderate who votes for fillibusters - so long.

Guys: Is there anyone out there who thinks Brown has run a good -- or even competent -- campaign? He is the incumbent. She was virtually unknown. He has a huge ability to make news and to position himself as he chooses. He should have made some fairly simple moves early on to blunt the argument she's using now. Meanwhile, he's been hammering away at her on issues that people just aren't all that interested in. There were two or three polls in late summer showing that even most Republicans didn't give a rat's behind about the Native American thing, and yet he has continued to carry that message himself! (Just from a tactics point of view, once an issue has been aired and you've got what mileage you can out of it, don't gum up your own image by carrying the attack. Have someone else do it. The talk-radio types and a conservative columnist or two were obviously going to keep it alive.) But he used it as his lead-off in not one but two debates. That obviously changes his image, in a negative way, with some of the very middle-of-the-road voters he needs to gold. Meanwhile, he's also decided a no-new-taxes position will work, when it's obviously to most everyone that something will have to be done on the revenue side, so the real issue becomes, who pays more? I mean, you are running for re-election in this state and you plight your troth to Grover and don't find a way negate that position? It's incomprehensible.

Mr. Lehigh appears to fault Brown with running a negative campaign.  He seems not to have a problem with Warren's rather negative campaign (also funded in large part by out-of-state interests).  I would agree that Brown needs to focus on the issues and less on Dr. Warren's Cherokee roots or lack thereof.

Although, as another reader points out, the Cherokee nation would have its first member elected to the Senate--notwithstanding the fact that apparently Dr. Warren has never had anything to do with the Cherokee nation.  Whatever it takes to get elected, right?

But what would a Senator Warren be like?  Well, Elizabeth Warren is an anti-business extremist who would continue the U.S. down the same path of stagnation and misguided socialist policies that have destroyed Europe's competitiveness.  She boasts of providing Occupy Wall Street's intellectual foundations.  She boasts of sticking up for "the middle class" while advocating policies that would accelerate the disappearance of a middle class.  She advocates dependency on big government in place of self-reliance.

I'm not saying she doesn't represent the people of Massachusetts very well.  Indeed, she surely is very representative of the denizens of Cambridge, Amherst, and other liberal havens around the state.

Scott Brown, meanwhile, relates better to working people, the military, and small businesses.  He has worked hard to distance himself from the mainstream Republican party line and has worked with Democrats.  He honestly boasts that he is the most bipartisan Senator, and he correctly points out that Warren would be anything but bipartisan.

Election year antics aside, it's a pretty clear choice.  Will Massachusetts vote for a moderate, pro-business, pro-growth candidate, or for a social welfare candidate who doesn't care about (or even know about) business?

How much does the Warren campaign owe a Scott Brown charity?  Because the Boston Globe's free services to Elizabeth Warren has certainly broken the People's Pledge agreement between the 2 candidates.  

I concur -- I haven't voted for a democrat in 30 years-- but as a social moderate I have concluded that I have to vote for Warren. The scary clowns nationally in the Republican party frighten me greatly -- and personal liberty trumps all. His ads have been terrible... no vision, no good reasons to support him. It is truly ironic when the democrats are offering more personal liberty... Any party with Santorum, Akin and Mourdock cannot have my vote anywhere in the country.

Wait a minute. Scott Brown has a LOT of support among the various Kings & Queens he has been hobnobbing with the past few years. Mr. Lehigh, you are out of bounds. Z.

Scot, do you think that the chance/view that Romney is going to win will also push more votes to Warren (and possibly to other dems in close races) to make sure of no one party rule?

Begolf: It's very, very close, and Mitt may win the popular vote, but I don't think he can take Ohio, and that means it's awfully tough for him to put together 270. If you put a gun to my head, I'd still say Obama pulls this out. But I do think the big vote for the president here will swell her vote. Still, Brown could have won this with a better campaign. Scot

A frustrating portion of this is that voters here hold Brown to a higher standard than they do a democrat. They want a huge list of accomplishments and he has only been in office for 2 years. MA voters have re-elected democrats through scandals and with lousy records (Tierney, Kerry).

I still think she is a charlatan and the law degree and cases, if they had actually been properly covered, would make a difference.

Anyone else finding the comments section really buggy over the past 2 days?