Former Sen. Scott Brown mulls return to politics
Former U.S. Ambassador and ex-Senator from Massachusetts Scott Brown says he’s got the energy for at least one more campaign, but it won’t come anytime soon.
Brown, who lost his seat in the U.S. Senate to now-Sen. Elizabeth Warren in 2012, said he’s not happy with what he saw in last week’s presidential debate, the path he sees the U.S. traveling down and the choices presented to voters, and all of that has him wondering if he should re-enter politics.
“I’m sad, and I’m mad, and I’m angry,” Brown told WBUR shortly after the debate. “I’m thinking about whether there is another run, sooner rather than later, because we need good people in our political system.”
“I’ve always felt, whether you are a Democrat or Republican, you need good, hardworking, honest people who are problem solvers. And if you recall…I was the most bipartisan senator in the United States Senate for the whole time that I was there,” Brown said.
If he were to return to the campaign trail, Brown said, it would not be during this election or this year. But it is this election cycle, and Biden’s poor performance on Thursday, that’s got him thinking about another run. Brown said he knows and likes President Joe Biden, and that it’s sad to see the president in such a diminished capacity.
“I know Joe Biden. I spent a lot of time with him,” Brown said. “That’s not the Joe Biden I know.”
Brown won a special election and served the two years remaining on a six-year term after the death of long-serving U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy in 2009.
The first Massachusetts Republican elected to the U.S. Senate since 1972, Brown sought a full term in 2012 but lost.
Brown’s most recent foray into electoral politics came in 2014, during a senate campaign in New Hampshire, where he lives now. Brown won the party primary but lost the general election to the incumbent, U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen.
In 2017, Brown was appointed as the United States Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa by then-President Donald Trump. Brown also spent 34 years working as a JAG officer in the U.S. Army National Guard and retired in 2014 at the rank of Colonel.
Since leaving diplomatic service, Brown has kept busy with his band, Scott Brown & the Diplomats, who are scheduled to play Salisbury Beach for the Fourth of July.