Talk about high expectations. Republicans were euphoric when Scott Brown won the U.S. Senate seat for Massachusetts on January 19. He was going to be their 41st vote in the Senate filibuster against health care reform. He arrived in Washington, D.C. to take his seat on February 4. He had a certain swagger. Then he seemed to disappear.
Not invited by Republican leaders to the health care summit with President Obama. Not seen on Fox News or in the mainstream media. Not heard on the Senate floor. Whispers that Scott Brown is a RINO, Republican in name only. That he is not a true conservative.
And then this week the health care reform legislation passes anyway, and Scott Brown's historic and ostensibly game-changing victory of just two months ago seems a distant and no longer relevant memory.
The Boston Herald, which endorsed him in the special election, suggests that the Scott Brown victory backfired. Boston University Professor Thomas Whalen offers this judgment on Scott Brown.
"His election was supposed to spell the death knell of health-care reform. If anything, it pushed the President to redouble his efforts."
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