Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) has had better weeks. With the polls increasingly showing him trailing Elizabeth Warren (D), the Republican created some new trouble for himself when he falsely accused victims of asbestos-related illnesses of being paid actors.
But this piece, published by the conservative Boston Herald, is arguably the most damaging of all.
A group with the startling moniker “Obama Supporters for Brown” showed up in Dudley Square yesterday — and were hit with an apparent racist slur from a group of Warren backers — while organizers acknowledged they were paying modest “per diems” to homeless people and others to wear the T-shirts in an area where civic leaders have come out strong for Elizabeth Warren.
It stands to reason that Brown would want to tell voters that some President Obama supporters back him, too. After all, he’s in Massachusetts, where the president is quite popular, and Mitt Romney is not. It also stands to reason that Brown would like people to believe his supporters are racially and ethnically diverse.
But the Republican senator’s campaign is supposed to earn support based on merit. Instead, homeless people are, according to the article, receiving a per diem, “meant to cover transportation, child care and other costs, [that] ‘works out to’ roughly $8 an hour.” In fairness, I should note that some of the so-called “Obama Supporters for Brown” activists are not homeless, but all of them are receiving compensation in exchange for “volunteering.”
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past." Recommended
