I haven’t been following the day to day developments in the Massachusetts Senate race between Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren, so I was only dimly aware of the fact that asbestos had become a campaign issue. Elizabeth Warren represented the families of people who died from asbestos poisoning, and some of those people agreed to appear in one of her campaign commercials attesting to the good work she did on their behalf. As a result, Scott Brown received a question yesterday from a firefighter while he was campaigning in Taunton, Massachusetts.
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.”
That was a big mistake on Scott Brown’s part. Three family members came out to blast Brown for his insensitivity.
“What Scott Brown said today is so offensive to me and my family after what we went through,” [Ginny] 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.”
“Let Scott Brown tell me to my face that I am nothing but a paid actor, and I’ll set him straight on what it was like to watch my father suffocate to death,” [John] English said
“To dismiss what my family went through by calling me a paid actor isn’t just disrespectful, but it’s cruel,” [Steven] Yapp said. “He’s attacking people who lost loved ones to asbestos poisoning, just because we stepped forward to tell the truth about Elizabeth Warren. Sen. Brown showed his true colors today. He’s a politician who will say anything and attack anyone that gets in his way.”
All Scott Brown had to do is acknowledge that his opponent has done some nice things in her life and that her work on behalf of these families was one of those things. Then he could have explained some of the things he has done on the behalf of firefighters and said something about why he deserves their support. But he couldn’t give Warren any credit, so he came up with a conspiracy theory to explain why she had won the support of these survivors.
He was probably going to lose anyway, but I think this fiasco probably seals the deal.
Love Those Comments
Scott’s apparently paying per diem for “volunteers” to work the inner Boston area for him.
Not too bright. This is not something people will get pissed about (as opposed to the asbestos thing), but it IS something people will laugh at. I’d rather have people pissed than laughing at me.
It’s worse than that. Paying a stipend to some volunteers is not a terrible thing. But paying a bunch of black people, some of them homeless, as members of a fake movement called “Obama Voters for Brown” is scraping the bottom. Especially when his scam is exposed a day before his subhuman libel against the asbestos poisoning victims. As always with Republicans, check out their attacks and find that they are the real perps.
Funny how often during this season we’ve seen a Repub politician blurt out some outrageous “fact,” only to be taken by surprise at the shitstorm that ensues. I think (hope, actually) that this is the first real crack in the epistemic bubble they’ve been living in. It’s been way too long that they’ve succeeded in injecting Fox/Limbaugh surreality into general discourse with little or no pushback. As a result they’ve become largely disconnected from the universe in which the rest of us live. Reality always gets you in the end, though, and maybe their time is finally up.
It’s always struck me as a tough sell for Brown to attack Warren’s work for asbestos victims as “being a corporate shill for Travelers Insurance”. The case is complex, but Warren’s work wasn’t: it really did help asbestos victims and their families retain some legal rights during the long bankruptcy proceedings that Johns Manville used to duck liability for asbestos poisoning. So it’s not surprising that Brown would now tar Warren’s supporters: his original attack is failing, and this is all he has left. (And I’m employed, a taxpayer, and proudly voting for Warren.)
Well…
Isn’t it obvious? The firefighter who asked the question was obviously a paid surrogate plant put there to ambush Brown.
The Democrats will stop at nothing. Don’t you know? 🙂
The day that a GOP Senator defends an asbestos company (is there a less popular industry?) and attacks victims of their products, is a day that shows the party is too stupid and tone deaf to actually govern. Even if what Brown said was true it was simply moronic to go there.
Rep answer, “Cross their palms with money”…mmm what was the question again?
So why is Brown “publishing advertisements featuring family members of victims of asbestos related illness”? What’s his angle? And he knows “his” family members are “regular folks”, yet “hears” that Warren’s are “surrogates”? Of course.
And today came the fake apology from Repub Brown? what a surprise…
All Scott Brown had to do is acknowledge that his opponent has done some nice things in her life and that her work on behalf of these families was one of those things. Then he could have explained some of the things he has done on the behalf of firefighters and said something about why he deserves their support. But he couldn’t give Warren any credit, so he came up with a conspiracy theory to explain why she had won the support of these survivors.
YOu miss the point. Scott Brown made his GOP bones today. In case anyone was wondering if the tomahawk-chop rally was a one-off event like Rand Paul’s curb-stomping supporter, Brown had to prove his bona fides to his mouth-breathing supporters, even if his campaign is beyond salvage. He’ll be back, in some form or other. NYC can’t rid themselves of Rick Lazio, for pete’s sake, and he never even won anything. Brown’s gonna be with us for decades to come.
Exactly. Handsome himbo willing to, even when it’s politically damaging, make shit up to bolster a claim that everything a Democrat does is the worst thing that’s ever been done?
Yeah, he’s on the wingnut gravy train for decades.