Brown was clearly a moderate from the beginning, anyone who thought otherwise was fooling themselves, and he lost only because of Obama coattails.
Ayotte though was a mystery (ala another famous New Hampshireite, David Souter), pre-election everyone had a different opinion, everything from “very conservative” to “Susan Collins”. I’d say she ranks about a “Judd Gregg” at this point. Not great but better than someone like Brown (or certainly Collins, the worst, most liberal Republican in Congress). She’s more like Coats or McConnell, not liberal but establishment. Coats is an establishment old bull, it’s shame he was nominated in 2010 because the conservative vote was divided. He must keep quiet cause I never hear him criticized.
I’m not a fan of many Palin endorsments but she was not wrong to back Ayotte in 2010. Her main primary opponent, Ovide Lamontagne, is a loser who probably would have lost to the rat Hodes. He was nominated for Governor in 2012 and badly lost a race a he should have won. Given that Ayotte was not clearly any kind of RINO (those who said she was at the time offered no proof) she was the easy pick over the loser Lamontagne. He may be a swell guy but as evidenced by his 2 blowout defeats for Governor in 1996 and 2012, he ain’t ever gonna win high office.
I’m not happy to hear of Ron Johnson of WI being in on this with Ayotte and Coats.
Better to just write off Red England...the people are essentially Democrats.
Both Johnson and Duffy have been big disappointments over this.
Jeffrey Lord is reliably one of the best observers we have on the scene, but IMO he is too kind to Ayotte here. She campaigned as a conservative, as that was the will of the voters in 2010, but then she immediately hooked up with McCain and Graham, giving them an unfortunate new sidekick—it didn’t take her any time to “grow” in Washington and she was immediately known by the company she kept.
I take it she’s looked to the Collins and Snowe examples next door in Maine to try to secure a long-time senatorial position, but she has been a huge disappointment from the start.
Shame on Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. He Lied to Bill O’Reilly.