In the wake of Scott Brown's landscape changing win in Massachusetts, the clear message to Republicans is "keep on truckin'." As the Boston Globe reports, the green GMC Canyon truck - what the paper deemed Brown's "regular-guy-mobile" featured so prominently in his campaign - is experiencing "a surge of interest" at Bay State dealerships. All of which suggests that with his pickup truck Scott Brown like Fred Thompson before him has perfected the Republican art of ersatz authenticity.

The Senate's first former nude model may own five properties and be married to a Boston television news anchor, but the lasting image for voters of the Wall Street-funded working stiff is that truck:

"My name is Scott Brown and I'm running for the United States Senate. This is my truck. I put a lot of miles on it during this campaign.

Wherever I go people tell me they're concerned about the path our country is on. Spending is out of control. Government keeps getting bigger and bigger. It's time for a new direction.

"I love this old truck. It's brought me closer to the people of this state. And I want to speak for them as their next United States Senator."

If that road to office sounds familiar, it should. After all, actor and long-time lobbyist Fred Thompson used it to drive his leased red pickup into the Senate in 1994.

As the New Republic recalled in 2007 while musing about a potential Thompson run for the White House:

By the time Fred Thompson decides whether or not to join the presidential fray, you will have heard the story of his red pickup truck at least a dozen times. The truck in question is a 1990 Chevy, which the famed statesman-thespian rented during his maiden Senate campaign in 1994. The idea was that Thompson would dress up in blue jeans and shabby boots and drive himself to campaign events around Tennessee. Upon arriving, he'd mount the bed of the truck and launch into a homespun riff on the virtues of citizen-legislators and the perils of Washington insider-ism. For good measure, he'd refer to himself as "Ol' Fred" and the Chevy as "this ol' baby."

There was no real reason to think the tactic would work. Thompson's own campaign manager dismissed it as "gimmicky and hokey." Thompson, after all, had spent the previous two decades as a well-paid Washington lobbyist and sometime screen actor. He was about as close to being a salt-of-the-earth Southerner as Truman Capote, and it was a stretch to think average Tennesseans wouldn't pick up on the dissonance. Yet the gambit proved wildly successful. Thompson was down big to Democrat Jim Cooper when he initialed his car-rental agreement. He went on to win the race with more than 60 percent of the vote.

In 1996, the Washington Monthly's Michelle Cottle ("Another Beltway Bubba?") concluded that "with his pickup truck, his blue jeans, and his deep, friendly drawl, Thompson has cultivated the perfect political image for today's anti-Washington climate."

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Well, it's not like we couldn't see this coming:

BOSTON - In an epic upset in liberal Massachusetts, Republican Scott Brown rode a wave of voter anger to defeat Democrat Martha Coakley in a U.S. Senate election Tuesday that left President Barack Obama's health care overhaul in doubt and marred the end of his first year in office.

The loss by the once-favored Coakley for the seat that the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy held for nearly half a century signaled big political problems for the president's party this fall when House, Senate and gubernatorial candidates are on the ballot nationwide.

More immediately, Brown will become the 41st Republican in the 100-member Senate, which could allow the GOP to block the president's health care legislation and the rest of Obama's agenda. Democrats needed Coakley to win for a 60th vote to thwart Republican filibusters.

Everyone on the Democratic side of the aisle is busy finger-pointing now. Fact is, everyone deserves a share. Especially because they're all so focused on assigning blame now -- and none of them are talking about the elephant in the room. This was a victory for the right-wing propaganda machine, and no one is even facing up to how to deal with that.

Sigh.

Can we call a moratorium on going Godwin already? My in-laws lived through the actual Nazi invasion and occupation of Denmark. It's not a term to flippantly toss about, and certainly not in this case. Supporting Martha Coakley for Teddy Kennedy's Senate seat is akin to the party responsible for killing millions of Jews, gays, Gypsies, among others and advocating eugenics? Really?

It cheapens the word and it minimizes the horrors that were experienced by so many people and it needs to stop.

UPDATE: Sen. Kerry has called out the Brown campaign for their threatening tactics:

At a press conference today, U.S. Sen. John Kerry called on Scott Brown to tell his out of state supporters to put an end to the bullying and intimidation tactics of the past few days.

Recent media reports have described a range of these outrageous tactics, ranging from the theft and burning of lawn signs to threatening comments posted on the Facebook pages of Coakley supporters to death threats posted on Coakley’s own Facebook page.

Meanwhile, at a West Springfield event on Saturday, when a Brown supporter yelled “Shove a curling iron up her butt!” in reference to Coakley, Brown himself smiled in acknowledgment of the threat.

“I'm no stranger to hard fought campaigns, but what we’ve seen in the past few days is way over the line and reminiscent of the dangerous atmosphere of Sarah Palin's 2008 campaign rallies. This is not how democracy works in Massachusetts. Scott Brown needs to speak up and get his out of state tea party supporters under control. In Massachusetts, we fight hard and win elections on the issues and on our differences, not with bullying and threats,” said Senator John Kerry.

“He stoked the fires himself - smirking at threats against the Attorney General, busing scores of paid ‘supporters’ into his events, and standing by while his supporters call his opponents ‘Nazis.’ But what we’ve seen over the past two weeks is these out of state supporters coming in and engaging in tactics we’ve never seen here before. Now, as Election Day approaches, it’s become increasingly clear that Scott Brown has lost control of his campaign, and we are calling on him to tell his out of state supporters to stand down,” said Coakley spokesman Corey Welford.

I'd like to see Candidate Scott Brown denounce these kind of tactics, but sadly, we know he won't.

(h/t Sammy 67)

OMFG! What the hell is wrong with Massachusetts? This idiot, who doesn't think it's too low to smear a dead woman by tacitly questioning whether she was married to Obama's father, is way too close in the polls for me to believe.

And it's a pathetic pandering to the birthers. But maybe we should expect that from Brown, since he

• Panders to the teabaggers (while protesting his ignorance of the movement);
• Refuses to pay health benefits to his campaign workers, labeling them as independent contractors (which may be a violation of the FEC);
• Prioritized building a golf course over aiding 9/11 volunteers;
• Has notorious anti-gay NOM make robo-calls for him;
• Protects big banks from paying back their TARP money;
• and allegedly, is about to be endorsed by none other than Democratic turncoat and McCain BFF, Joe Lieberman.

The DSCC has put together a website just to track all of Brown's lies, and it's growing daily.

Seriously? This is who should replace the liberal lion of the Senate?

No fraking way. Massachusetts residents, get out there on Tuesday. Vote for Martha Coakley, because notwithstanding his Cosmo centerfold, this is not someone who should be the Republican Party's 41st vote.

The conventional wisdom about the Stupak bill among the male-dominated media: Why won't the women just sit down, shut up and let the men folk do their political bidness? What is all this talk about "rights"?

Instead, ask yourself these questions: Why is it that the moderates conservatives always get their way - at the expense of liberals, and of alleged Democratic party values? Why is the compromise always on our end? Why aren't people like Bart Stupak being told to "put on their big boy pants" and swallow compromise to get health care reform?

And why isn't some progressive politician introducing a bill to cut off funding for special education or any other services at Catholic schools? After all, how is providing the services from a trailer at the far end of the school parking lot not an "accounting trick"? Why aren't liberals aggressively challenging the tax-exempt status of the Catholic church?

I was under the impression we had freedom of religion in this country. Apparently, I was wrong.

WORCESTER - Opening up a major fissure in the US Senate race, Attorney General Martha Coakley said yesterday that she opposes the landmark health care bill approved by the House Saturday because it contains a provision restricting federal funding for abortion.

Coakley, in her boldest gamble of the campaign, said that fighting for women’s access to abortions was more important than passing the overall bill, despite its aim of providing coverage for 36 million people, establishing a public insurance option, and prohibiting insurers from discriminating against patients with preexisting conditions.

“To pretend that now the House has passed this bill is real progress - it’s at the expense of women’s access to reproductive rights," Coakley said in an interview, after making similar comments yesterday morning on Boston radio station WTKK-FM.

[...] Coakley’s opposition to the bill put her squarely at odds with her three rivals for the Democratic nomination, including US Representative Michael E. Capuano, who voted in favor of the plan and blasted Coakley’s stance yesterday, calling it “manna from heaven" for his campaign.

“I find it interesting and amazing, and she would have stood alone among all the prochoice members of Congress, all the members of the Massachusetts delegation," Capuano said in an interview. “She claims she wants to honor Ted Kennedy’s legacy on health care. It’s pretty clear that a major portion of this was his bill."

He went on: “If she’s not going to vote for any bill that’s not perfect, she wouldn’t vote for any bill in history. She would have voted against Medicare, the Civil Rights bill. . . . Realism is something you have to deal with in Washington."

Why is it that "realism" is always and inevitably at the expense of women, gays and minorities? Is that the new Democratic value?

UPDATE: Apparently Capuano has since changed his position, saying he'll vote against the bill if Stupak amendment stays.

You know what's really great about these poll results? Public Policy Polling asked how voters reacted to Warren being labeled as a "Harvard professor," and most independents and Democrats reacted favorably. Ha, ha! A set of polls earlier this month showed Brown with a seven-point lead, but it looks like that's no longer a problem:

PPP's newest Massachusetts poll finds Elizabeth Warren leading Scott Brown 46-41.

Brown is not proving to be an overwhelmingly popular Senator. 45% of voters approve of the job he's doing to 42% who disapprove. That's actually up a little bit from a 44/45 spread on our last poll in September. Republicans love him, giving him an 80/7 approval spread. But his appeal to Democrats and independents is not what it once was. At the end of his first year in office Brown was nearly running even with Democrats, with 35% approving of him to 41% who disapproved. Now he's at 23/63 across party lines. And although he remains popular with independents at 53/34, it's not the 61/25 rating he enjoyed with them at the end of 2010.

In the head to head with Warren, Brown has the GOP base completely locked up 89-3. And the 17% of Democrats he's winning is comparable to the 19% we found him getting against Martha Coakley in 2010. But he's only up 48-36 with independents, a far cry from his 64-32 advantage with them against Coakley, and that's the main reason he trails by this narrow margin.

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