"Being the underdog never deters a driven Brown" by Brian C. Mooney, Globe Staff | November 20, 2009
Scott Brown was not always the self-assured state senator, lawyer, National Guard officer, triathlete, and Republican candidate for US Senate that he is today. Far from it.
He was once a shaggy-haired 12-year-old growing up in Wakefield, drifting into trouble. His parents divorced when he was a year old, he said, and each remarried three times.
Asked if he had ever been arrested, Brown, choking up at times, related a story he said he had never told:
“My mom was on welfare a little bit, and, you know, I lived with my grandparents, I lived with my aunt, whatever. I was a jerk. I had some issues. You know, I was lost. . . . Mom was always working. . . . There was some violence in there where I would be sticking up for my mom and sisters. . . . I may get a little emotional. . . . And one day I was out with some older kids. . . . We were in Salem. . . . I had a pair of farmer overalls, and I stuck some records in them. . . . I was walking out, and a guy caught me.
“And so I was arrested and went over to Salem District Court, and Judge [Samuel] Zoll . . . gets me in his chambers, and he says: ‘So, tell me about yourself. I see you like music.’ I said, ‘Yeah, I love music. I like Zeppelin and Black Sabbath and Grand Funk, all that stuff.’ He says, ‘What else do you do?’ And I said, ‘I play . . . basketball, and I like to run.’ He said, ‘How good are you?’ And I said, ‘Well, I score about 30 or 40 points a game.’ He says, ‘Do you have any brothers or sisters?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, a half-brother and some half-sisters,’ and he says, ‘Wow, that’s great. . . . Do they look up to you?’ And I said, ‘Absolutely.’ He said, ‘That’s fantastic.’ . . . He . . . looks me right in the eye [and says], ‘How do you think they’d like to see you play basketball in jail?’ ’’
“I was, like, ‘Whoaaa.’ . . . He says, ‘I want you to write me a 1,500-word essay on that very topic, and I want it next week.’ That was the last time I ever stole, the last time I ever thought about stealing. . . . The other day I was at
The underdog
Scott Philip Brown, now 50, is an endangered breed in Massachusetts politics: a Republican state legislator, one of five in the 40-member Senate. But he does not consider the GOP’s minority status a big handicap in the special election to fill the seat of the late Edward M. Kennedy. He believes voters are alarmed by the brand of expansive government practiced by President Obama, the Democratic Congress, and the Bay State’s all-Democratic delegation. “I’m going to be the only person down there who is going to be the independent voter and thinker,’’ Brown said.
Since the mid-1980s, he has won nine consecutive elections, including three terms in the House and a special election in 2004 to fill the state Senate seat of Democrat Cheryl Jacques, who left to lead a national gay rights group. “I’ve always been the underdog in one shape or form,’’ Brown said. His narrow victory in the 2004 special, over Jacques’s chief aide, marked an upset, given that the election was held on the day that Senator John F. Kerry was vying for the Democratic nomination in the state’s presidential primary.
Brown’s Senate district snakes 40 miles from liberal suburbs west of Route 128 in the north to more conservative communities along the Rhode Island border in the south. It is more affluent, independent, and less Democratic than the state as a whole. By any measure, Brown is among the Senate’s more conservative members, but his record does not fit neatly into an ideological box. He calls himself “fiscally conservative and socially conscious.’’ His voting record wins high marks from business and gun owner groups and Citizens for Limited Taxation. Brown receives low grades from the National Organization for Women, the Massachusetts Teachers Association, and the AFL-CIO....
Brown favors a mix of “solar, wind, nuclear, limited drilling’’ as new energy sources but opposes the wind farm proposed for Nantucket Sound because of the location. “It’s like putting turbines on Boston Common,’’ he said. He voted for a regional version of the proposed federal cap-and-trade law to curb carbon emissions, but says now that the vote was a mistake because the prototype for Northeastern states has increased energy prices. Brown said he would oppose the federal bill....
On abortion rights, Brown is basically in favor but with nuance. “Roe v. Wade is the law of the land, and I don’t plan on overturning it, but I’ve always felt that, you know, I’m against partial-birth abortions and believe in parental consent, a strong parental notification law,’’ Brown said, adding that he would not apply an abortion rights litmus test in Supreme Court confirmations. Brown’s record is modest in terms of legislative initiatives, though he is an acknowledged leader in the Senate on issues affecting military veterans and a champion of stronger laws to punish sexual offenders and protect children from them....
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State Senator Richard R. Tisei of Wakefield, leader of the Republican minority in the Senate, said: “People think [Brown] is more conservative than he is because of his position on gay marriage.’’ Brown has been a vocal opponent of same-sex marriage and in the past has been an advocate for a ballot question to amend the state constitution and ban same-sex marriage. He has been the bête noire of gay rights activists since 2001, when he said it was “not normal....’’
Related: Baker's Mate
If he doesn't care, I don't!
Brown quickly apologized and said he chose his words poorly. Activists have neither forgotten nor forgiven.....
Brown’s flair for being politically incorrect continued in 2007. Appearing before students at King Philip High School in Wrentham, he addressed nasty Internet attacks against him and his family for his views on gay marriage. Brown read verbatim to students some of the postings, two of which included stark profanity, igniting another controversy. He later apologized for repeating the vulgarities....
Brown was a basketball star and senior cocaptain at both Wakefield High School, where he was also Middlesex League MVP, and at Tufts University, where his long-range shooting earned him the sobriquet “Downtown Scotty Brown.’’
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A lieutenant colonel and lawyer in the judge advocate general corps, Brown has not been called up for duty in Iraq or Afghanistan but said he spent about 10 days in Paraguay in 2005 and a week in Kazakhstan in 2007 for a disaster and counterterrorism exercise....
His wife of 23 years is Gail Huff, a veteran reporter at WCVB-TV, and their daughter Ayla is better-known than both. In 2006, she was a finalist on “American Idol,’’ and, after a phenomenal basketball career at Noble and Greenough School, she won a scholarship to Boston College, where she is a four-year starter.
As students, Brown and Huff were models and actors in television commercials. They met at a state regulatory board, where they were attempting to recoup fees from agents who had stiffed them. After Brown announced his candidacy for the Kennedy seat, Cosmopolitan magazine reprised its 1982 “America’s Sexiest Man’’ photo spread of Brown, including one photo of him in the nude....
The family’s lifestyle is comfortable but not ostentatious. Besides his wife’s Channel 5 salary, Brown reported 2008 income of $181,838: $82,549 in legislative pay, $80,975 from his solo law practice, mostly for real estate closings, and $18,314 from the National Guard. The couple owns a four-bedroom, Colonial-style home on a cul-de-sac in Wrentham, which values the property at $549,000; a six-room Cape-style second home they built a quarter-mile from the beach in Rye, N.H., assessed at $472,500; and a timeshare unit in Aruba worth between $10,000 and $20,000. In 2007, they bought three small, income-producing condominium units on Commonwealth Avenue in Brighton, near Boston College, at a total cost of $489,000. Ayla is co-owner of one of the units.
I'm not against owning property, but when millions are being booted from their homes.....
The family worships at New England Chapel in Franklin, a member of the Christian Reformed Church of America, a Protestant denomination, but has developed a special relationship with an order of Cistercian Catholic nuns at Mt. St. Mary’s Abbey in Wrentham....
At least they have THAT going for them!
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