by Scott Brown
The Coakley team used negative calls, negative polling. They put out one ad on abortion, saying that I’d turn away rape victims from emergency rooms, and another mailer that was so blatantly false we held a press conference with our legal counsel and threatened to sue under the Massachusetts statute that makes it a criminal offense to knowingly make a false claim in a political race. After the election, the chairman of the state Democratic Party personally called me to apologize for the mailer.
Ayla and Arianna were distraught listening to the attacks. They knew what type of dad I was. Gail couldn’t say anything, but they could. They asked how they could help. They came out to hold a press conference and speak to reporters denouncing what was being said about me, adding that such lies are why young people are discouraged from going into politics. They asked me if they could tape a radio commercial too. It was possible for anyone listening to hear the hurt radiating from their voices.
Meanwhile, I got on a bus and traveled around the state, holding rallies where thousands of people came out to stand in the cold. When I talked about the ads, I would just say, “Shame on Martha,” and the crowds would start chanting back, “Shame on Martha, shame on Martha!”
The final weekend before the vote, on Sunday, President Obama flew in to try to salvage the Coakley campaign. In his speech to energize her supporters, he mocked my truck, saying, “Anyone can buy a truck,” and “I’d think long and hard about getting in that truck.” The next night, I returned home to a rally in Wrentham. Ayla and Arianna were with me, and I got up and said, “Mr. President, you can criticize my record, you can criticize my policies, you can criticize my votes, but don’t ever start criticizing my truck. With your help, I’m going to gas up that truck and drive it right down to Washington.” The crowd went wild, chanting, “Gas the truck, gas the truck!”
On Election Day, just under 2.25 million people went to the polls to cast their votes—earlier commentators had expected a turnout of my old best guess, around 600,000. That night, some of the local television stations sent their top reporters to Coakley’s headquarters and their B-teams to mine. We knew what was coming, even if they didn’t. A little over an hour after the polls closed, Martha Coakley called me to concede. The national media called the race by 9:30 that night. I had won by 5 points and 110,000 votes; according to the finally tally, 25 percent of the Democratic vote had gone for me. Eric, Peter, and Beth like to point out that they never had me practice a concession speech.
Of course, the start of my victory speech was unrehearsed. It was an exciting moment, everything was going great, and as I was thanking Gail and Ayla and Arianna, I made another one of my bad jokes, saying that Ayla and Arianna were “available.” It was a joke that only a father understands, and only a devoted dad could actually make and occasionally get away with it. My daughters are never available. They know I love them and would do anything for them. They also realized when I cracked one of Dad’s bad jokes that I was back; I was their dad again, and no longer in campaign mode. It was a joke in the same way that my high school buddies call me up and say, “So, Senator Brown, can I still call you a loser?” and proceed to do just that.
It was crowded that night on the podium. My mother and father were there, and so were Leeann, and Robyn and Bruce. I had some of Gail’s family, my nieces and nephews, cousins, so many people who had thankfully circled back into my life. I never thought I’d be standing there, surrounded by all these parts of my past, but I was. For the first time in my memory, everyone was smiling.
And for the first time, on election night, in public, I had Gail. Channel Five initially hadn’t wanted her to appear at all. Then the channel came up with all kinds of restrictions: she couldn’t answer any questions; she couldn’t be seen in any photographs that might be disseminated or used for publicity purposes. We finally agreed that she could only appear with me in public after one side or the other had conceded the race. On the night of my primary win, she had come with me to the hotel, but she had to remain alone up in the suite while I went down to give my victory speech. When reporters came to the suite to ask me questions, Gail was forced to hide in the bathroom and pretend she wasn’t there. She had to spend that evening by herself, in tears, while I was downstairs celebrating with our kids, my supporters, and our friends. Now I finally got to put my arm around my wife on election night and celebrate a win, in public.
That night, I remembered Ted Kennedy for his service and spoke of how “I honor his memory” and pledged myself to be a worthy successor. I spoke of the people I had met in every corner of the state. I looked them in the eye, shook their hand, and asked for their vote. I didn’t worry about their party affiliation, and they didn’t worry about mine. It was simply shared conviction that brought us together. I promised to work to put government back on the side of the people who create jobs and on the side of the millions of people who need jobs. And I spoke about working on behalf of our veterans and working to keep our country safe. I ended with the lines, “I’ve got a lot to learn in the Senate, but I know who I am and I know who I serve. I’m Scott Brown. I’m from Wrentham. I drive a truck, and I am nobody’s senator but yours.”
Chapter Seventeen
Mr. Brown Goes to Washington
In August 2005, Ayla auditioned for American Idol. Gail and I weren’t eager for her to do it. Gail was worried that she’d be devastated if she didn’t make it through. I was worried about what would happen if she did. When she was only fifteen, Ayla had been recruited to play basketball for Boston College, with the offer of a full scholarship and a spot on a great team. She was one of the youngest recruits to commit to BC in the school’s history. Now, at age seventeen, she was entering her senior year of high school. Idol would require her to be in California, to miss games, to miss starting work with her Boston College coach, Cathy Inglese. But she had always loved singing. She had persuaded us to let her take singing lessons when she was sixteen years old. She had already been in some local competitions. Some she had done well in, others she hadn’t, but she had a great voice. The auditions were being held at Gillette Stadium, where the New England Patriots play, in neighboring Foxboro, five minutes away. We relented and said yes.
The days of the auditions, it poured rain. Not a little rain, but massive, drenching downpours. Ayla and Gail waited in line for eighteen hours. I kept driving over with blankets, food, and dry clothes. We’d hold up the blankets and Ayla would change right there, waiting in line. There were six stops at the audition table. Each hopeful had to sing for about fifteen seconds in front of a producer. Ayla had chosen “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” and she kept getting ushered through to the next producer and the next round. Then the auditioners asked to send a crew over to our house to film. I had a feeling by then that it was pretty likely that she was going to go all the way, to sing in front of the judges’ panel, Randy Jackson, Paula Abdul, and Simon Cowell. In her final audition, Randy and Paula, but not Simon, gave her a golden ticket and sent her through to Hollywood. That final night of tryouts, she got to sing the national anthem before the New England Patriots’ game, which Idol also filmed. We knew that she was moving through, but the mammoth contract she had to sign meant that we couldn’t tell anyone that she had made it to the next level of Idol. Everything had to be kept under wraps until the show aired.
Hollywood week was pretaped. Gail took Ayla out to California and didn’t tell a soul, except her basketball coach. Because she was only seventeen, either Gail or I or another family member had to be with her. Gail had the first shift. The days were grueling. Added to that is that all of the younger contestants, those under eighteen, have to attend four hours of school a day to comply with California law, so while the older singers have a chance to sleep, the younger competitors are in the classroom. Ayla made it through Hollywood week. When Gail had to be back at work, I took over; then Gail’s sister, Ayla’s aunt, flew out for a few days. In between, we were flying Ayla back and forth to compete in
her basketball games. If she suddenly stopped showing up for basketball, all the secrecy and confidentiality that the show required would be gone. Ayla would fly in on the red-eye, throw on her uniform and go play, and then turn around and fly back out. And she managed to be the high scorer in nearly all the games.
Her last game was in Rhode Island and she scored 40 points; she was 10 for 10 from the foul line. Afterward in the locker room, she broke down in tears, telling her teammates that she had to leave them to go compete on Idol.
For all the things that you see when the show is boiled down to an hour or so of tape, behind the scenes everyone at Idol was very professional and very nurturing. Paula Abdul in particular was wonderful to Ayla, and the show has not been the same without Paula.
Ayla made it to the top twenty-four, then the top twenty. Then the next week, in the round of sixteen, which would pare the contestants down to the top twelve, she sang British singer Natasha Bedingfield’s “Unwritten.” I arrived just before the results show started and found her curled up on the couch with a high fever. The rooms were cold, particularly the hotel rooms, and she had throat problems, combined with the bad food and overall exhaustion. She was simply worn-out. She didn’t make the cut to the top twelve, although Chris Daughtry, Taylor Hicks, Kellie Pickler, Ace Young, and Mandesa all did. We still keep in touch with Ace, Kellie, and Mandesa. I was there for results night, sitting in the audience, watching her cry as she sang her song one last time. It was the most helpless I had ever felt as a parent, watching my baby cry, and having to grip the arms of the seat not to just rush up onto the stage and hug her.
Backstage, all the emotion caught up to her, and Ayla, who is like me and almost never cries, was bawling her eyes out. Paula Abdul came up to give a hug and say how sorry she was. I thanked Paula, but I said that I thought the show had it wrong about Ayla. She wasn’t a girl from a privileged background, as the TV clips had made it out to be. Her mom and I had both come from nothing, and she had worked herself for everything she had. At home, her car was a used 1983 Crown Victoria. But one thing did come out of those two nights: Natasha Bedingfield’s “Unwritten” vaulted to number one on iTunes. Ayla met Natasha the following summer when they both performed at the KISS 108 radio station concert outside Boston, and Natasha gave Ayla a big hug and thanked her for helping to make the song so popular.
Ayla turned her thirteenth-place finish into a great career all through college. She went on to cut a couple of CDs and to sing in all kinds of venues, including for the Celtics before a number of their final playoff games, so much so that they’ve considered her their lucky charm. And of course, when she came home, she started training for the Boston College basketball team. The toughest challenge for Ayla was trying to balance the NCAA restrictions with also having a career. She did it all four years without incident. We all regretted that Ayla did not go a bit farther on Idol. Arianna had a ticket to come out to Los Angeles the day after Ayla was eliminated, and Gail and I are still sad that Arianna never got to participate in her sister’s Idol experience in California.
So, before January 2010, I had always joked that I was tied at a distant third with Arianna among the most well-known people in the Brown household, after Gail and Ayla. I had learned a great deal from them, watching my wife and my daughter handle the media spotlight with grace and aplomb, and watching Arianna handle the high pressure of horse meets, where she earned bright ribbons for her skilled and elegant competition. But with the vote on January 19, the level of outside interest in the Brown household was now about to radically change.
I’m grateful to my family for helping me to be prepared for the full deluge of press scrutiny. Had I come from an entirely private life, it might have been totally overwhelming. Now, it was just partly so. On one of my first plane flights down to Washington, a local reporter showed up at the arrival gate and was waiting for me as I got off the plane. I recognized him and asked him if he was going on a trip, and he told me that he had bought a travel ticket just so that he could get past security to talk to me when I landed. I told him I hoped that it was going to be worth the money he’d spent.
Everywhere I went that day, I had cameras in my face. Reporters surrounded me with microphones and lights like a swarm of buzzing bees. After the election, I had to fight just to get sworn in. The Massachusetts secretary of state wouldn’t immediately certify me, although the office had done it in three days for Niki Tsongas, the widow of former U.S. Senator Paul Tsongas, when she won a special election for Congress in 2007. But this time, state officials apparently felt that it was imperative to wait ten days for overseas absentee ballots to be opened and counted. I had to work to get them to certify my win and to make sure that Vice President Joe Biden wasn’t going to be away or the Senate out of session so that I could be sworn in. Biden had called me on my cell phone on election night, saying, “Scotter, this is Joe, Joe Biden, the vice president. I guess I should call you senator. You ran a hell of a race. This is Joe Biden, the vice president. Hell of a race. Congratulations.” I also got calls from the president and other top leaders on both sides of the aisle.
Vice President Biden swore me in on February 4, the day before a two-pronged epic snowstorm began to hit Washington, shuttering the federal government. A month or so later, we had lunch at the White House. He gave me a tour of the West Wing, from the Situation Room to the Rose Garden and the putting green. The day before, President Obama had signed the massive health-care overhaul bill, and Biden had been caught on a live mike telling the president, “This is a big fucking deal.” As I finished my tour and sat with Biden in his bright blue West Wing office, with a fireplace at one end and portraits of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the nation’s first two vice presidents, on an adjoining wall, I said to Biden, “Mr. Vice President—” He promptly interrupted and said, “Hey, Scott, call me Joe.” “Joe,” I said, “this is a big fucking deal.” He looked at me, grinned, and said, “You’re a wise guy, senator. I like that. We’re going to get along just fine.” The lunch was scheduled for thirty minutes, but we spent over an hour and fifteen minutes eating, until his staff forced us to finish up. I gave him an Ayla Brown CD and a Red Sox hat with the number 41 on the side, for the forty-first senator, as a parting gift.
Back in Boston, Gail took vacation time from work. I packed up some things and readied my truck, and we drove down to D.C., in time for the second wallop of snow on February 10. I had to start hiring a staff and doing basic things like getting computers, getting the Senate office painted, and locating furniture in the aftermath of a crippling blizzard. What most new senators have two or three months to accomplish, I had to do in all of one week. However, I had the upper hand. I was a Boston driver behind the wheel of a big green pickup truck on the streets of Washington during a snowstorm. Aside from a few plows, I was one of the only people able to drive on the roads.
Almost from day one, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called me and kept in close touch. He was welcoming and generous with his counsel, while always recognizing that I had pledged to be my own man. But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid also reached out. His first call came on a Sunday morning. When I asked him where he was, he told me he had just stepped out of church to make the call. He asked me to look with open eyes at a bill he was proposing. I said I would, and then suggested that he go back inside to church. It was a jobs bill. I knew it would be a deeply controversial vote for me to take office and promptly side with the Democrats on a piece of legislation. But I felt that I owed it to my constituents to read the bill. What it proposed was targeted tax cuts for employers, designed to create more jobs. Its centerpiece was a payroll tax cut to take some of the burden out of hiring, and its price tag was $15 billion. I knew that there were more potentially divisive and expensive amendments waiting in the wings, totaling upwards of a hundred billion of extra dollars that we could not afford. I decided to cast the deciding vote for cloture, which in the U.S. Senate means a vote to end debate and mov
e the legislation to the next level, usually toward a final vote on the measure. I thought that given the dire economic circumstances of so many Americans, Washington needed to focus on jobs, and on ways to improve the job picture without adding to the already crushing national debt. I didn’t want to play politics and just score some short-lived political points. Sadly, after that one bill, the issue of jobs largely vanished from the Senate’s agenda for most of the rest of 2010.
Whenever I went to vote, gaggles of reporters stood in the hallway outside the Senate, asking me what I was going to do. The first few times, I felt as if I had been transported back to infantry basic and was standing in the rocket simulator, with explosions detonating above me. Instead, this time, it was the blinding lights and camera flashes from the mass of press.
One night in Washington, to relax, Gail and I walked into the Woolly Mammoth comedy club, only to find that four of the skits in the show were about me; we had already seen the very funny one on Saturday Night Live, a takeoff on the Cosmo guy comes to D.C. That night at the Woolly Mammoth, people in the audience asked if I was offended. I said no, I have a sense of humor, something a lot of people in Washington need to have more of. Afterward, a bunch of the cast asked to meet me and take photos outside in my now famous truck. I’d now go to Costco or Home Depot and people recognized me. My office was sent fan mail and requests for pictures. But we also got death threats and mail from people who threatened to do us bodily harm. For a while, I had to hire armed guards to patrol my home in Wrentham. If I walked our dogs, someone with a camera would follow me to make sure that I picked up the poop.
