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Brown Stumps For McCain In Grand Canyon State
US Senator Scott Brown, driving past palm trees and American flags, brought his political star power to Arizona today to stump for the 2008 GOP standard-bearer, John McCain.
Brown received several standing ovations and loud applause from a group of Republicans who hailed his surprise victory in Massachusetts. Brown mostly shrugged and smiled.
“I’m honored to be in Antelope Country!” Brown told a crowd of about 1,500 at the Grand Canyon University gymnasium. “Wow. This is great. If you told me five months ago I would be standing here, I would have never believed you.”
McCain is locked in one of his toughest reelection fights of his career, and was hoping Brown could bolster his conservative credentials. McCain’s chief opponent in the Republican primary, former congressman and talk radio personality J.D. Hayworth, has been criticizing McCain as too liberal for Arizona.
Both Brown and McCain railed against President Obama’s health care plan, and the possibility that Congressional Democrats will attempt to pass it through a reconciliation budget process.
“Scott and I just returned form trying to do the Lord’s work in the house of Satan,” McCain told the crowd. McCain called the plan “Chicago-style sausage making,” and said, “We’re going to fight, and fight, and fight.” Brown accused the Democrats of engaging in “political chicanery and parliamentary maneuvers.”
“It’s going to affect the way we get health care, no only in my home state, but across the country,” Brown said.
Afterward, a crush of people approached the freshman Massachusetts senator, taking photos with cell phones and asking him to autograph their McCain stickers. One man presented him with a baseball, and Brown took out a sharpie and signed his signature along with #41, to represent his vote in the US Senate.
“Bless you!” one woman yelled to him.
“Save us, senator,” another said to him quietly. “Save us.”
“I didn’t know until I showed up that Scott Brown was going to be here,” said Mark Doebele, a 33-year-old high school teacher from Phoenix. “I was like, ‘Holy cow. Scott Brown’s here?’ Don’t tell Senator McCain this, but that was almost more exciting.”
McCain was the first US senator to take Brown’s calls when he was a long-shot candidate running for the seat left vacant by the death of liberal lion Edward M. Kennedy. Brown has since called McCain his political role model.
“He brings star power. Kinda like Sarah Palin does, you know?” McCain said in an interview. “He’s a national figure. People react to him in the most positive way…He comes in a position of significant influence, in our party and in the senate.”
McCain introduced Brown, who was wearing a shirt and tie but no jacket, as “one of the great political heroes in political history.”
One side of the audience almost immediately rose to their feet and Brown said, “Oh, sit, sit. Please. Really.” He then looked to the other side and asked why they hadn’t stood, too (at the end, the entire gym rose to their feet).
Brown and McCain flew out to Arizona this morning for the campaign rally and will go to a cocktail fundraiser tonight at a former McCain aide’s home. He and McCain are planning to go to Tucson tomorrow, where they will attend a University of Arizona Wildcats basketball game.
Brown, though, is missing several basketball games of his daughter, Ayla, who plays for Boston College and is in the ACC tournament in Greensboro, N.C.
“When I scheduled it, I scheduled it obviously not knowing when the ACC tournament was,” Brown said in an interview. “I’d love to be there but I get the tweets and the texts. Spoke to her this morning, gave her a pep talk. She understands I have a new role.”
Arizona residents talked of staying up on election night in Massachusetts, not going to sleep until they knew the results. Now, they simply wanted to lay eyes on the man who changed their party.
“I made sure my schedule was free,” said Pete Leonard, a 34-year-old from Phoenix. “Having seen [the election], and followed it, I wanted to see this guy and see what the hype is about. I just want to be part of the action.”
“I think we all understand political gratitude,” Hayworth said in an interview when asked about Brown coming to campaign for McCain. “I look forward to working with Scott in the United States Senate, and I’m glad he’s getting a nice trip to Arizona. We’re going to have beautiful weather for him.”
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Sources: MSNBC, Boston Globe, Google Maps
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