With Bay State Democrats outnumbering Republicans 3 to 1, Brown is counting on attracting the votes of independents who can set aside his party affiliation and vote for the candidate.
NORTH GRAFTON — Attending a meet and greet for Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown on Thursday, Claudia Ferrecchia wore a “Women for Brown” pin and a Brown sticker, carried a Brown T-shirt and held a pro-Brown sign reading “People over Party.”
Until six years ago, Ferreccia was a Democrat. Angered over Democrats’ “big government” philosophy, Ferreccia, a paralegal from Marlborough, switched her voter registration to independent.
“He’s not interested in voting only one way,” Ferreccia said of Brown. “He’s interested in what’s important to the people of Massachusetts.”
Ferreccia is the face of those voters Brown is trying to attract as he makes his closing pitch. In a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans three to one, Brown is banking on independents who can set aside his party affiliation and vote for the candidate. In the final days of a tough race against Democratic Harvard Law School Professor Elizabeth Warren, Brown has ditched his trademark pickup truck in favor of a bus emblazoned with the words “an independent voice.” He adopted the closing slogan of “People over Party.”
Campaigning with Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, Brown repeatedly referred to studies by Congressional Quarterly and Bloomberg Government calling Collins the most bipartisan senator and Brown the second-most. Brown referred to himself and Collins as senators “who are trying to push back against the extremes, putting people over party on a daily basis.”
“I’m concerned the extremes down in Washington on the left and the right are getting a little bit overbearing,” Brown told voters in Framingham.
Brown said too many moderates are leaving the Senate – Connecticut independent and former Democrat Joe Lieberman, North Dakota Democrat Kent Conrad, Maine Republican Olympia Snowe and Indiana Republican Richard Lugar. “You want somebody who’s going to be that bipartisan problem solver,” Brown said.
On the campaign trail, Warren has repeatedly tried to tie Brown to the national Republican Party, arguing that electing Brown means choosing a Republican-controlled Senate. Brown, in making his final pitch, is arguing the opposite. Choosing Warren, he says, means picking a senator who “will be down in lockstep with her party.” Picking Brown, he says, means choosing an independent.
“It’s not about Republicans, about people of a party,” Brown told reporters. “It’s about independents, it’s about bipartisanship, it’s about doing what I said I would do, which is be that independent voice.”
It is an argument his supporters echo. “I think independents will decide this race,” Worcester County Sheriff Lewis Evangelidis, a Republican Brown supporter, said after a Brown event with law enforcement officers. “It’s hard to see why independents would not recognize his independence and reward him with votes.”
Collins called Brown “a person who always puts his constituents first, not the party,” who “doesn’t hang out with the extremes in Washington” but “hangs out with those of us in the center.”
Polls show that Brown is getting overwhelming support from Massachusetts’ Republicans – but is also leading Warren by significant margins among independent voters. At events, he projects an image of an average guy – eating bacon and French toast for breakfast at a diner, talking about his dogs, and kidding affectionately with his wife and daughters – and his audience.
Thanking his wife Gail Huff for her involvement on the campaign trail, Brown said a key test of marriage is how you perform talking to people outside, and how you relate at the end of the day. “I can tell you it’s been good,” Brown said. When the audience laughed, he quipped with a smile, “You all have dirty minds.”
Brown stresses his local roots and his family. (Warren is originally from Oklahoma.) He kicked off his bus tour with a rally in his childhood hometown of Wakefield. “I’m from here, OK?” Brown said. “I married a local Waltham girl. My kids were born here. I know this town like the back of my hand.”
Brown was introduced at the Thursday evening rally by his public school basketball coach, Brad Simpson, who helped mentor Brown through a difficult childhood, and who said Brown had morphed from a “long-haired gangly teenager” to an accomplished national figure. Simpson said he once mentioned to Brown that he would be a better basketball player if he worked on his right-hand skills. He saw Brown the next weekend jogging around a lake alone, dribbling with his right hand.
“That is what Scott Brown is all about. Determination, preparation, focus and commitment,” Simpson said.
It’s an image voters relate to. “He’s more for working people,” said Robert Jones, a city employee in Beverly.
Independent voters who attend Brown’s events often say they are drawn by his positions, not his party. Terrie Sharp, a retired assistant principal from Milford, was a registered Democrat who was turned off by Democratic President Barack Obama’s administration. Now an independent, she is supporting Brown. Sharp said party is less important to her than a candidate’s views, and she likes Brown’s opposition to illegal immigration and his support for women’s rights – an area Warren has frequently attacked Brown on.
“He’s proven what he can do,” Sharp said. “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.”