Sally Quinn: First of all Scott brown is a hunk. And I think that the fact that he posed semi-nude in a magazine gave him a huge advantage in terms of public recognition.

Sally Quinn made these statements when Brown got the teabaggers upset with his vote on the Financial Reform bill. Even BillO laughed at Quinn's description of Brown, but apparently he is stroke material for Republicans. This was back in 2010 when Scott was the flavor of the tea party.

Flashing back to the present, Scott Brown will not run for John Kerry's seat.

Former Massachusetts Republican senator Scott Brown announced Friday that he will not run in the special election for outgoing Democratic Sen. John Kerry’s seat. Brown’s decision means Kerry’s seat is likely to remain in Democratic hands.

“…I was not at all certain that a third Senate campaign in less than four years, and the prospect of returning to a Congress even more partisan than the one I left, was really the best way for me to continue in public service at this time,” Brown said in a statement.

“And I know it’s not the only way for me to advance the ideals and causes that matter most to me.“That is why I am announcing today that I will not be a candidate for the United States Senate in the upcoming special election.”

That's another Republican pin-up gone. Good riddance to you. sir. Does he have eyes on running for governor? We shall see, but this is excellent news for Democrats and Ed Markley. Anti-choice conservaDem Steve Lynch is now running for the job and Howie has some info on him.

The almost universal favorite for the Democratic nomination, with endorsements from the DSCC and from Kerry, is progressive champion Ed Markey, the dean of the Massachusetts delegation, who has a stupendous record in the House, not just as a dependable voter but as a leader on some of the most important issues facing the country, particularly around Climate Change and the environment. His lifetime ProgressivePunch crucial issues score is 94.70, a fraction better than Jerry Nadler and Barbara Lee and a just bit below fellow Massachusetts Reps Jim McGovern and John Tierney.

But Markey isn't the only congressman looking for the promotion to the Senate. Way down at the other end of the political spectrum, conservative Democrat-- and anti-Choice fanatic-- Stephen Lynch would also like to run. His lifetime Progressive Punch crucial vote score is a dismal 78.72. (This session Markey has a 100 rating so far and Lynch has a 33.33 rating, one of the lowest of any Democrat in Congress.) This afternoon, at Iron Worker's Hall in Boston, Lynch announced he would challenge Markey for the nomination (after campaigning at diners in Springfield and Worcester all morning). The primary is set for April 30 and the general election will be June 25. Markey has around $3,000,000 on hand for the challenge, while Lynch has something like $800,000 in his campaign warchest.

As a state legislator Lynch had a 100 percent voting record from Massachusetts Citizens for Life, a group usually associated with Republicans.

We've added Ed Markey to our Blue America page so please donate if you can. He's a real progressive and we need more of them in Congress.

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The chattering class is fond of far-fetched theories that lead to lots of intrigue, and one fanciful idea that has been floating around lately is that Scott Brown is ready for a comeback.

The hypothesis is that if John Kerry is nominated to President Obama’s cabinet, then Brown would be a strong contender to fill Kerry’s seat. It has even been speculated that Senate Republicans went after U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice so harshly just to improve Brown’s chances at a comeback.

If you look at the facts, though, you’ll see that Brown is far from the sure bet to win another contest that Republicans hope he is. Consider the following:

Who lost by a bigger margin than almost any candidate in a competitive Senate race in the country?

Scott Brown. The 7.5-point loss he suffered at Elizabeth Warren’s hands was even worse than the 5.5-point loss for Brown’s fellow Republican Richard Mourdock in Indiana -- that’s right, the guy who said pregnancy from rape is “something that God intended.” In short, as convenient as it is to refer to the Massachusetts contest between Brown and Warren as a close race, Brown took a beating.

Who was the only incumbent in the entire U.S. Senate to lose in 2012?

Scott Brown. Every one of Brown’s colleagues in the Senate who vied for reelection managed to win. That includes Bill Nelson in the swing state of Florida. That includes Democrat Jon Tester, who held onto his seat in Montana. That includes Bob Casey in the perennial battleground of Pennsylvania. It includes the other Senator Brown—Sherrod Brown of Ohio. Scott Brown proved himself uniquely inept in his failure to fend off his challenger – and to in fact lose by 7.5%. And remember, this wasn’t months or even years ago – this was last month.

Who lost to Elizabeth Warren by the same margin that William Weld lost to John Kerry?

Scott Brown. Weld and Brown both lost by approximately 7.48 points, but Weld was going up against a popular two-term incumbent, whereas Brown was the incumbent facing a first-time political candidate. For all the talk about his special campaign skills and positioning, nothing in the results was very special.

Who in the Massachusetts Senate election appeared to pick up no last-minute support or votes from undecided voters?

You guessed it: Scott Brown. Dozens of polls conducted in the seven months leading up to Election Day show that Brown hovered around the 46% mark the whole time. Of course, 46% is what Brown actually ended up with on Election Day. In other words, Brown made no progress during his campaign, despite an enormous war chest of almost $40 million to spend on it.

These facts tell only part of the story, though. What’s most damning to Brown’s future prospects isn't the margin of his defeat. It’s the campaign he ran and the issues he stood for.

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John McCain's attacks on Susan Rice have been utterly bizarre. They go beyond all rational thought, and now Senators Collins and Corker have joined the parade.

The thing is, they're a lot of nothing about nothing. All noise, no signal. These senators are behaving like idiots over the possible nomination of Susan Rice to replace Hillary Clinton, without any rational basis. Rice used talking points on Sunday shows that didn't line up with what Senator McGrumpy's gut told him? Maybe someone should have told him not to eat spicy food before meeting with her!

As Rachel notes, it gets stupider and stupider by the day, but it is confirming her conspiracy theory. And mine.

I've long believed this was really to try and force President Obama into abandoning her nomination and nominating John Kerry instead, so that Scott Brown could run for Kerry's seat and come back to the Senate. Rachel thinks so, too.

Senator McGrumpy recently said Scott Brown is the one he most wants in the Senate. Susan Collins did the bus tour in Massachusetts for Scott Brown's re-election campaign, Susan Collins campaigned for Kelly Ayotte, and both of them love Scotty Brown.

As Rachel says, guess who's doing all of the dirty work to make sure that Massachusetts Senate seat opens up? That's right. The same folks who weren't too Republican-toxic to campaign for Scott Brown.

Doesn't seem so crazy to me.

I know there will be a lot of very thoughtful and moving blog posts today at all my favorite blogs and news sites about what different people are thankful for. Truth be told, I am actually a pretty sentimental guy, and if this Thanksgiving is like most of the rest, some of those pieces will probably make me a little teary-eyed. I know I am incredibly thankful for how lucky I am, that I live in such an incredible country and have such a remarkable family. I am thankful as well for a country where my mom and other older relatives have Social Security and Medicare to rely on; where my brother Kevin had disability support throughout his life; for a country where an elderly and disabled homeless man I know finally is getting government housing after a long wait.

But I have to admit a certain cynical side as well, because when I see a video like this, I also become very thankful for policy opponents like this:

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It is interesting that Mr. Blankfein’s video came out the same day a much smarter, savvier proponent of Social Security and Medicare cuts came out with a memo about how to sell such cuts. Lloyd did pretty much everything wrong, as far as what the memo recommended, and I’m sure my friends at Third Way would not have wanted the CEO of Goldman Sachs as their lead spokesman on the campaign to make those cuts. But God bless him, I am so very thankful: having a man as wealthy and privileged and powerful as Blankfein, a man who is the CEO of a company which has gotten enormous government bailouts and largess over the last 5 years, tell people they need to retire later and have their benefits cut is a great boon to folks like me who are opposing such things.

The people at Third Way are a much tougher foe. They are old political warriors who know how to craft messaging research to make it look like voters are with them, and know how to use people’s love of Medicare and Social Security as a way to scaring them into making cuts in the programs.

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Bless you, Mitt Romney. Please keep doing conference calls with your donors. An annual reunion isn't nearly enough, I think to stay really connected you should do conference calls once a week. And please, get out there on the speaking circuit, the country needs to hear your voice. A lot. When it comes to the 2016 Presidential race, I don’t care whether you endorse someone in the primary fight, but it would be so great for you to go out and campaign for the nominee. Maybe you and George W. Bush could hit the road together, doing a barnstorming bus tour through the swing states. If we’re really lucky, the nominee will be Paul Ryan.

I want to say 2 things about the whole Social Darwinist, “makers and takers”, Ayn Rand-style selfishness is a virtue/generosity weakens society, 47% of you (and especially you blacks and Hispanics and young women who want your contraceptives) are dependent leeches philosophy. The first is that it is clear that the Republicans really believe it. Whenever they don’t think anyone except their wealthy donors are paying attention, they lay it all out there, are very open about it. This is their core philosophy, their core values that we’re talking about here.

The second point is that the American people fundamentally reject those values. The nadir of Romney’s bid for the Presidency, the absolute low point when after things had been close so long it looked like we might be headed for an Obama blowout victory, was in the days after the release of the 47% video. Had Obama pressed that point in the first debate, we might have even had that blowout. The only reason Romney came as close as he did was his etch-a-sketch move to the middle, when he explicitly rejected the 47% values.

It’s not just African-Americans and Hispanics and young people who reject those ideas either. You might have noticed the swing states of Iowa and NH who voted for Obama. IA, PA, and FL- 3 states with the oldest populations in the country- went for the President. Mostly white Minnesota, which came surprisingly close to going for Bush in 2004 and where Romney spent money advertising went easily for Obama. Mostly white Maine, which has been a swing state in many past Presidential elections, wasn’t even close this year, including the more rural and Republican congressional district. This isn’t just demographics, folks: most Americans reject these kinds of ideas and values. If Romney had run openly on them, he would have been destroyed. By pretending to reject them he made the election closer, but he couldn’t hide his values entirely because his and Ryan’s budget reek of those kind of Ayn Randian values.

Central to the Republican defeat, in fact, was the tax and budget debate. Having embraced the Ryan budget, and then picked the author of it to be his running mate, they had to try and defend it but failed miserably. It was an incredibly extreme document from start to finish, weaning all those dependent seniors, children, veterans, disabled, and poor off of the public “teat” so that they wouldn’t be victims and dependent on government, and using all the money (literally all of it cut from those programs) to give massive new tax breaks to the wealthy on top of what they already have. And the more people learned about that budget, and the values behind it, the more they disliked it.

Having that values and budget issue out there hurt Republican Senate candidates badly as well. Charismatic, popular, moderate voting and sounding Scott Brown lost to Elizabeth Warren in part because of sticking to the Republican philosophy of not taxing the wealthy. The popular former Governor of Wisconsin lost to Tammy Baldwin in part because of having to defend that philosophy. House members in conservative Western states Montana and South Dakota were dragged down in their Senate races by the Ryan budget albatross hanging around their necks.

The American people in this election heard the generosity-breeds-dependency philosophy, and they heard Barack Obama and Elizabeth Warren and other Democrats say that we are all in this together, that we are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers, that we need to lift each other up. We won, convincingly, in spite of a tough economy and all the wealthy donor money spent us against.

So, Mitt- and Paul Ryan too!- stay out there in the debate, please. Keep giving speeches, keep doing conference calls, write some op-eds. Tell us some more about all the gifts Barack Obama is giving us undeserving types. Never stop speaking out, brothers Mitt and Paul. And Democrats will keep winning elections, as long as they fight for all those people Mitt and Paul like to mock.

Yeah, I think this vet choose exactly the right term: It's cheesy of Scott Brown to pretend his two weeks in Afghanistan are on a par with National Guard members who served a full tour of duty:

WASHINGTON -- The man who inspired Sen. Scott Brown to write a bill making it illegal to falsely claim military honors said he thinks the Massachusetts Republican is stretching the truth when he claims to have "served in Afghanistan."Brown made the Afghanistan declaration in his recent debate with his Democratic opponent for the Senate seat, Elizabeth Warren.

But Brown's service in Afghanistan was not combat. It was part of his annual two-week stint with the National Guard, in which he requested, in a highly unusual move, to serve in Afghanistan.

"It sounds to me like we just got another Blumenthal Connecticut, Mark Kirk type things there," said Vietnam veteran Doug Sterner, referring to exaggerated military claims two years ago by now-Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.)"I thought it was seriously misleading," said Sterner, whose website outing heroes was the basis for Brown's "Stolen Valor" bill. Sterner's criticism echoes a Boston Globe editorial published Thursday morning.

"I think it does go to an issue of personal character and that concerns me," added Sterner, who earlier this year broke with Brown and has endorsed Warren.

Sterner said it wasn't that Brown's service was with the National Guard that's the problem. Scores of Guard members have been recipients of the Medal of Honor, he noted. Brown's mistake, he said, was implying that his service in Afghanistan was a real tour of duty.

"I would be the last person to denigrate anybody's National Guard service, but I thought the claim, putting himself on par with men and women who have done combat tours, often in excess of a year, 14 months, was a pretty cheesy thing to do," Sterner said.

He allowed that Brown can legitimately claim spending time in Afghanistan. But he said he also thought it broke the spirit of what Brown tried to with the Stolen Valor Act, which Brown himself said was aimed at stopping people from benefiting by swiping the real glory from others.

Anyone who has watched a loved one die of cancer knows how awful it is. A person with an operating sense of empathy would feel for these people and their grief and ongoing sense of loss. But then there's Scott Brown:

Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) sunk to a new low when he suggested at a campaign stop that the family members of asbestos victims who were in a campaign commercial for Elizabeth Warren were actually paid actors:

During a question and answer session, one firefighter commented that both campaigns are publishing advertisements featuring family members of victims of asbestos-related illness. He asked Brown how Warren gets the victims’ family members to go on her commercial. “A lot of them are paid,” Brown said. “We hear that maybe they pay actors. Listen, you can get surrogates and go out and say your thing. We have regular people in our commercials. No one is paid. They are regular folks that reach out to us and say she is full of it.”

Guess what? They aren't actors. And they're pretty damn offended too.

One of the ads, titled "Ashamed," features Kingston resident Ginny Jackson, whose husband died of mesothelioma after working at a Quincy shipyard that was filled with asbestos.

Reached through the Warren campaign, Jackson responded to Brown's comments, calling them offensive.

"What Scott Brown said today is so offensive to me and my family after what we went through," Jackson said. "He's sunk to a new low."

Jackson said going through her husband Sam's sickness and death from mesothelioma was one of the most difficult situations she ever endured.

"Sam and I were childhood sweethearts and we had been together since I was 15 years old," Jackson said. "I came forward in this campaign because Massachusetts voters need to know the truth about what Elizabeth Warren did to help families like mine who were affected by asbestos poisoning, rather than Sen. Brown's misleading attacks."

Yeah, that's bad form to insult a grieving widow. Scott Brown later recanted and apologized, admitting he jumped to conclusions. That's all fine and good, but it's a little too little, a little too late. How many people heard the apology vs. heard the original false accusation?

It's disturbingly too close in Massachusetts for the junior Senate seat. Won't you consider giving Elizabeth Warren a little support for all the stupidness she's forced to deal with?

Scarce has more.

The plot, hatched by a strange alliance of high-profile conservatives, was to have James O'Keefe and his "crew" catch the SEIU in some kind of voter fraud similar to what O'Keefe has tried to commit in various states around the nation in order to claim that voter ID laws are necessary.

Let's note for the record that the entire right wing has been curiously silent about the voter registration fraud schemes bought and paid for by the Republican National Committee. You would think concerned conservatives like Fund, Fox and Friess would be very, very concerned, but instead, silence fills the hole where outrage should be.

The Players
John Fund is a conservative champion of Voter ID laws, and senior editor for The American Spectator. Fund also writes for the Wall Street Journal.. Steve Friess is the son of right-wing moneybags Foster Friess, of "aspirin between her knees" fame. And of course, James O'Keefe is the Breitbart disciple who loves to edit video to make it look like people are doing things they aren't in order to destroy organizations like ACORN.

Others involved include Heather Higgins, pundit and president of Independent Women's Voices. Higgins is also affiliated with the Hoover Institution.

The Plot

It begins with a tip that appears to have come via neocon radio host John Batchelor. The tip says that the SEIU is contracting for buses to take voters to the polls, asserting that "if you're black or brown they'll rope you in and take you to the polls, registration can be worked out."

That tip went to John Fund, who then forwarded it to Heather Higgins, who forwarded it to Foster Friess. Out of this, comes the plan from Steve Friess to make an "ACORN sting video." Oh, the paranoia just shines through. Also the racism.

Some black /Latina conservatives could be wired for video, and get picked up on one of these busses, and show what goes on. My guess -they are offering cash, (which I am pretty sure is illegal), and I also would wager that at least some of these busses are making more than one stop with the same people - ie getting them to vote twice -though I don't know the mechanics of that.

Perhaps some private detective types would be needed to help track down the busses, and a block or two ahead of them to drop our cameramen off...

Too much to dream? Imagine pulling this off - legal / image problems for SEIU would be a good thing... think there's upside to this?

Brietbart would know, and Fund would know - 'if we catch them doing X, it could mean Y' - I just don't know what the stakes are...

The most interesting part of the Steve Friess email was right at the end, where he asks his dad to 'bounce this off Breitbart.' At the time, O'Keefe hadn't been arrested for his attempted bugging of Mary Landrieu's office and was still widely hailed as a conservative hero. Evidently O'Keefe was also still part of the Breitbart inner circle, too.

O'Keefe forwarded on the email to Nadia Naffe, who worked for O'Keefe for awhile before there was a break and she accused him of harassment.

The End

Evidently they did try to get something, but never used it. Buzzfeed reports:

Reached by email, Naffe said the emails were authentic: "Fund and Steve Friess, the son of billionaire Foster Friess, introduced the idea to O'keefe that SEIU would fraudulently register anyone with brown skin to vote."

"James flew me out to Boston to find the SEIU busses, just days after that email was sent," Naffe said. She claimed that "Congressman Steve King from Iowa was waiting at the hotel when we arrived to take us to dinner. He gave us a pep talk about illegal voting."

"O'keefe has the footage, though I'm doubtful he would share any of it. Since, he was arrested a week later in New Orleans while attempting to wire tap Senator Mary Landrieu," Naffe said.

This may not rise to the level of blockbuster reporting, but I did think it was interesting to see how intertwined the networks are. John Fund, Andrew Breitbart and Foster Friess, all huddled together to make sure those nasty black and brown people didn't vote in Massachusetts.

Meanwhile in other pockets of RepublicanLand, they're fraudulently changing voter registrations, tossing Democratic registrations in the trash, and otherwise working on rigging elections. What a bunch of poseurs.

Way to go, professor! If Scott Brown is dumb enough to bring this up, way to throw it back in his teeth!

Elizabeth Warren fires back at Scott Brown's attack on her claims of Native American ancestry, in a new TV ad in the Massachusetts Senate race. Earlier Monday, the Brown campaign released an ad that questioned Warren's honesty, and whether she would have gotten any job based on the claim.

"As a kid, I never asked my mom for documentation when she talked about our Native American heritage. What kid would?" Warren says to the camera. "But I knew my father's family didn't like that she was part Cherokee and part Delaware — so my parents had to elope."

"Let me be clear, I never asked for, never got any benefit, because of my heritage. The people who hired me have all said they didn't even know about it. I'm Elizabeth Warren, I approve this message. Scott Brown can continue attacking my family — but I"m gonna keep fighting for yours."

This is good. Even if it's a post-convention bump for the most part, it shows she has momentum, and that's what you need at this stage of the game. I'd certainly look forward to having Elizabethe Warren in the Senate:

SPRINGFIELD — With 50 days left until Massachusetts voters decide who will represent them in the U.S. Senate for the next six years, Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren has pulled ahead of Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, according to a new poll.

The survey of Bay State voters conducted Sept. 6-13 by the Western New England University Polling Institute through a partnership with The Republican and MassLive.com, shows Warren leading over Brown, 50 to 44 percent, among likely voters.

The gap among registered voters is even larger, according to the survey, which concluded Warren leads 53 to 41 percent. The poll of 545 registered voters has a 4.2 percent margin of error, while the sample of 444 likely voters has a 4.6 percent margin of error.

Tim Vercellotti, professor of political science and director of the Polling Institute at Western New England University, said Warren's lead comes in part from the fact that she's shored up support among Democrats to 89 percent, while losing only six percent of her party's support to Brown.

Part of that bump, he said, may be attributable to the fact that polling started at the end of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., and just two days after Warren delivered a prime-time speech ahead of former President Bill Clinton at the event.

"This may be not just due to her speech, but the overall enthusiasm Democrats have had coming out of their convention," Vercellotti said. "The data shows that Democrats are more fired up right now than independents or Republicans."

If Warren's lead is indeed a post-convention bump, Vercellotti said only time will tell if it lasts.