Scott Brown Won With Big Money, Naked Double Standard

By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

Let me join in the Thomas Jefferson Street fray (a bit belatedly, I must add) over last week's GOP senatorial pickup in Massachusetts by relative political unknown Scott Brown. Not here, but elsewhere on the Web, I blamed the Democratic loss largely on frustration with universal healthcare in the state (it's not working) and Massachusetts's increasing number and percentage of independent voters.

I would also like to laud editor Robert Schlesinger's post on money inequality in the Massachusetts Senate race, especially late in the game.

I received a phone call from a political insider over the weekend who confirmed that and more to me. Not only did GOP groups come in big with late money for Brown, but I'm also told Democratic coffers dried up for Coakley early in the race because she started out 30 points ahead. Her supporters figured she just didn't need their largesse in this race and the national party funds dried up as well.

This caller also pointed out to me that if Martha Coakley or any woman had posed nude as a centerfold in a semi-pornographic pose, as did Scott Brown for Cosmopolitan magazine years ago, there's no way she could have lived that down to later run for federal office. Take a look at this picture and you tell me if a woman posed similarly, if she could ever have entered politics. My response is an emphatic, "I don't think so!"

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