Hey Blacken: He seems like a regular guy on my side to me, no?
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Brown takes upset bid to Bruins game
By Karl Vick
BOSTON - Republican Scott Brown positioned himself just outside the entrance to The TD Garden 45 minutes before the Boston Bruins faced off against the Ottawa Senators inside. The fans converged from every direction, including underground, the elevated train tracks that shrouded the old Garden having been moved, like so much of Boston, underground. It is a city that bears little of the feel it had two decades ago.
"The liberals are gone, too" announced Dennis Sheehan, an electric technician from Lowell. "They went too far. They left this country."
Sheehan, 54, was at the edge of perhaps 200 people who swarmed around Brown as 1 p.m. approached. Born and raised to vote Democrat in a blue collar, Irish Catholic family, he went Republican for Ronald Reagan and stayed there. Half of his family did the same, but the other half continued to vote Democrat, at least through last year's presidential election.
"The half of my family who voted for Obama are for Brown," Sheehan declared, from beneath a stocking cap of thick wool. "They felt sold out. He said he'd bring the whole country together. I've never seen the country so divided in my life, and I grew up in the 60s, with Vietnam.
"That was a generation gap. It's a cultural divide now. If we say something, they say it's racist or something. And they can say whatever they want. It's like we're living in two different countries now."
A man behind him shouted: "Who's seat?" The crowd shouted back: "The people's seat!"
A Toyota 4x4 drove by, tooting. A rocker and American flag were fixed to the roof, a stuffed elephant on the spare.
"We're not being heard no more," Sheehan went on. "We lost our say in government. And that's what our government was based on in the first place."
Martha Coakley, the state attorney general who won the Democratic primary, emerged from a party establishment he sees as both arrogant and a bit lazy. Up by 30 points after the Dec. 8 primary, polls show her even, at best, a day before voters will go to the polls.
"They thought the whole election was sealed already, and surprise, surprise surprise!" Sheehan said, with evident glee. "She didn't campaign til last week. This guy is meeting the people. He's a people person."
Pressed against the giant yellow letters spelling "GARDEN," the candidate autographed homemade signs, shook hands, posed for photos.
"You'd think Obama was over there or something," said Tamara Berish, glancing at the throng as she hurried into the arena. She had never heard the name Scott Brown. "All I care about right now is the game."
Mary Smith, a school nurse from Stoneham, was more delighted than distracted.
"I love this guy," she said. "I love him because first of all he's genuine. He's humble. And he's a real guy. I want less government. He represents less government, more choices for us. I think he's just authentic."
A registered Republican, formerly independent, Smith, 52, said she understood the national interest in the contest.
"It's a referendum on what's going on in Washington. The health care bill, I'm a nurse, it's awful. People don't understand what's going to happen."
As Brown moved back toward his bus, painted red white and blue, Brenda Staples snapped a picture with her mobile phone. It was a honey: a flag fluttering behind the candidate, people pressing toward him, and framing it all, a local television reporter doing a piece to camera as the whole extravaganza crabbed down the sidewalk.
"My daughter called from Georgia this morning," Staples said. "She said they had a prayer meeting for him."
By Post Editor | January 18, 2010; 2:45 PM ET
Categories: 2010 Election , Capitol Briefing
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