GOP's Brown branded turncoat for vote on jobs bill

WASHINGTON — For Scott Brown, the tea party appears to be over.

Literally overnight, the fledgling Republican senator who ended Democrats' filibuster-proof majority by winning a special election in Massachusetts has gone from being the darling of America's conservative activists to being their goat.

Brown joined four other Republicans on Monday in voting to block a GOP filibuster and move forward with a $15 billion jobs bill. The political blogosphere exploded almost immediately.

The conservative Drudge Report colored a photo of Brown on its home page in scarlet. Cries of "let down," "betrayal," "sell out," and "RINO" — Republican In Name Only — flew around Twitter. By Tuesday afternoon, more than 4,200 people had left comments on Brown's Facebook page, the majority of which were harshly negative. (Liberals engaged in some cyber-schadenfreude at the same time.)

The new senator responded by calling into a Boston radio station.

"I've taken three votes," Brown said with exasperation. "And to say I've sold out any particular party or interest group, I think, is certainly unfair."

By the time he seeks re-election in 2012, Brown said, he will have taken thousands of votes.

"So, I think it's a little premature to say that," he said.

Only five days earlier, Brown was cheered loudly by conservative activists at a gathering in Washington, D.C. He was received so warmly that some in the crowd began suggesting he could be another Ronald Reagan and help usher in a new era of conservatism.

Tea-party and other conservative activists felt particularly betrayed because many had poured money and manpower into Brown's underdog bid to win the Senate seat long held by liberal icon Edward M. Kennedy. The support included $348,000 on late television ads paid by the California-based Tea Party Express.

By Monday night, many of Brown's Twitter followers had concluded a White House run was out of the question — even as he entered Day 19 of his Senate tenure.

The fracas served as a reminder of how online grass-roots movements can be a double-edged sword. Brown took advantage of the Internet's exponential power to get the word out and to raise money. Now, he's facing its wrath in real time, too.

For his part, Brown has said since winning the Kennedy seat in January that he would vote in a manner reflecting the diverse, liberal-leaning people he represents.

Two other northeastern Republicans, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, were among the five Republicans who voted with the Democrats. The other two, Sens. George Voinovich of Ohio and Kit Bond of Missouri, are not seeking re-election in November.

Brown explained himself in a statement after the vote.

"I came to Washington to be an independent voice, to put politics aside, and to do everything in my power to help create jobs for Massachusetts families," he said. "This Senate jobs bill is not perfect. I wish the tax cuts were deeper and broader, but I voted for it because it contains measures that will help put people back to work."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's office said the Democratic leader had identified Brown as a potential vote last week and spoke to the freshman on the phone. But, spokesman Jim Manley said, "Senator Reid didn't know how Brown was going to vote."

One Massachusetts political scientist believes the vote was anything but dumb.

"Scott Brown knows that he's going to be judged differently in 2012 than he was in 2010," said Jeffrey Berry, a professor at the senator's alma mater, Tufts University. "He's facing a different electorate, with more Democratic voters, and Barack Obama at the top of the ticket, in what is still a blue state."

Sissy Willis, a Chelsea, Mass., tea-party blogger who supported Brown's candidacy, agreed that many of her compatriots in the nascent anti-government movement were "overreacting."

"They expected him to be a conservative when he's always been an independent," Willis said. "He's representing his constituents."

Willis said she expected Brown to follow through on trying to block the Democrats' health-care plan, a signature issue for his campaign. She compared the mania over Brown to that which surrounded President Obama's campaign. With both, she said, there was an inevitable letdown.