The Great Brown Hope

Several progressives - I, included - have been rooting for Susan Rice to be the nominee to succeed Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State in part for her foreign policy expertise, but also for another reason - we've been guessing that recent Republican attempts to undermine her have been part of an effort to get blow-dried model Scott Brown back in the U.S. Senate.

Come again? you're probably asking right now.  Here's how the plot we liberals see is supposedly set up.  President Obama is ready to nominate Susan Rice as his first choice for Secretary of State, with Massachusetts senator John Kerry as his second choice should Rice be rejected by the Senate.  The Republicans are thus aiming to derail Rice's as-yet unannounced appointment so that Kerry will be named instead, and once he moves to the State Department, Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick has to call a special election to fill the remainder of Kerry's Senate term . . . thus giving Scott Brown - defeated in his bid for a full Senate term by Democrat Elizabeth Warren - the opportunity to return to the U.S. Senate.  As for the assertion made by New Hampshire Republican senator and chief Rice critic Kelly Ayotte that this opposition to Rice's possible State Deaprtment appointment over the terrorist attack in Libya started before anyone knew what the outcome of the U.S. Senate election in Massachusetts was going to be, the counterargument is that 1) everyone knew that Scott Brown was going to lose anyway and 2) even if he won, the appointment of Kerry to head the State Department would have given the Republicans the possibility to get both of the Bay State's U.S. Senate seats.

And yes, I'm actually one of those people who believes that this Rube Goldberg-style conspiracy is in the making.  But recently, I've found some logical flaws in this theory. First, it rests on the belief that John Kerry is only in contention for one Cabinet post.  But even if Rice is confirmed as Secretary of State - no longer a slam dunk (more on that in a minute) - Kerry might still be appointed Secretary of Defense, opening up his seat for a special election anyway.  Secondly, Scott Brown has waged two U.S. Senate campaigns in less than three years, and he may be too exhausted to wage a third  campaign so soon . . . and would have to wage a fourth to keep that seat in 2014 if he theoretically won a special election in 2013.  Thirdly, there are too many Democrats who would be more favored to win such a special election than Brown - including Attorney General Martha Coakley,  who, despite having lost the 2010 special Senate election to Brown, is still the most popular politician in the Bay State and is probably looking for redemption.  A Republican would probably love to run against Coakley for Kerry's Senate seat because he or she would be unlikely to have a colder, more unemotional Democratic opponent in the state of Massachusetts unless Michael Dukakis comes out of retirement.  But Dukakis himself came back to win the governorship of Massachusetts in 1982 after losing the office four years earlier.  (He was originally elected governor in 1974.)  And  I could mention several other politicians - even more Democrats - who have come back from the politically dead.  A Coakley comeback is not necessarily likely, but it's possible . . . plausible even.  Fourth, if Brown lost his bid for a full Senate term after less than two years in office, why would anyone want to give him another chance? Fifth, even if Brown beat Warren, what other Republican could possibly win Kerry's seat?

As much as Massachusetts doesn't need another special Senate election, the Bay State can count on one, because it looks like Kerry is going to get the State Department nod - because Rice isn't going anywhere. She recently met with Republican senators Lindsey Graham, John McCain, and Ayotte to explain her handling of the news from the Libyan city of Benghazi on those Sunday morning talk shows and left them even more hostile to her than they were before.  You can chalk this up to racist paranoia - McCain has little support from black people, Graham's supporters in South Carolina don't like black people, and Ayotte, being from New Hampshire, probably doesn't even know any black people - and the "angry, headstrong black woman" stereotype that Susan Rice supposedly represents, but Rice is in fact known for her abrasive, undiplomatic approach to the issues.  The job of Secretary of State is to negotiate with and assuage opponents on the world stage, and she's proving to be ineffective in doing that with senators.  She may have even lost Maine's Susan Collins, hardly a right-wing ideologue.  If she leaves people in Washington with more ruffled feathers than they had before, how can she apply diplomacy and tact on the world stage?  

Anyway, it's understandable that liberals are paranoid about Scott Brown making a possible political comeback.  After failing to oust Scott Walker from the governorship of Wisconsin in a recall election in June, the left was very happy to oust America's most famous nude male model from the U.S. Senate in November. We couldn't get rid of Scottzo the Clown; we don't want to see the return of Scottzo the Brown.