WASHINGTON — For Scott Brown, it appears the tea party is over.
Literally overnight, the fledgling Republican senator who ended Democrats’ filibuster-proof majority by winning a special election in Massachusetts has gone from being the darling of America’s conservative activists to being their goat.
Monday night, Brown announced he would join four other Republicans in voting to block a GOP filibuster and move forward with a $15 billion jobs bill designed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Almost immediately, the political blogosphere exploded.
Cries of “let down,” “betrayal,” “sellout,” and “RINO” — Republican in Name Only — flew around Twitter. By late Tuesday afternoon, more than 4,200 people had left comments on Brown’s Facebook page, the majority of which were harshly negative. Tea Party and other conservative activists felt particularly let down because many of them had poured money and manpower into Brown’s underdog bid to capture the Senate seat long occupied by liberal icon Ted Kennedy.
By Monday night, many of his Twitter followers had concluded that a White House run had become out of the question — even as he entered Day 19 of his Senate tenure.
For his part, Brown has maintained since winning the Kennedy seat that he would vote in a manner reflecting the diverse and liberal-leaning constituency he represents. Two other Northeastern Republicans, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, also voted with the Democrats.
