Scott Brown’s Hail Mary Pass to the White House

By Bernie Quigley

- For The Hill on 2/19/10

If there is a celestial guiding spirit behind Scott Brown, it could be that legendary Bostonian, Dropkick Doug Flutie, who might be considered the father of the Hail Mary pass, as he once threw the ball so far at just the right time that it is considered one of the greatest moments in college football and in American sports history. Flutie supported and campaigned for Brown in his recent election. As The Hill reports that Scott Brown is being considered for President, it would seem right now like a Hail Mary pass.

But not impossible. And not necessarily a bad idea. I say that after viewing a few of the speeches at the CPAC conference. I am glad to see the solidarity and glad to see the Grand Old Party absorbing the Jeffersonian messages of the Tea Party people. But in all kindness, what a bunch of squares.

Politics is the structuralization of more general cultural themes. As time passes, those ideas become calcified. As Michigan Representative Thaddeus McCotter said yesterday, Republicans should look to conform to the world, not look to conform the world to its own ideology. And in that regard, there is something happening here in the world today, and it wasn’t quite happening at CPAC. What is happening is more confluent with the rise and arrival of Scott Brown.

What is awakening can be seen in Scott Brown, Sarah Palin, Bob McDonnell, the new Governor of Virginia and in particular, Rick Perry, Governor of Texas. They bring a new spirit, a new flame. And Cheney and the H.W. Bush crowd would like to extinguish it before the Democrats get their chance, and claim it for themselves. That is why they are lining up the family in opposition to Perry in his primary race in Texas, and since their candidate seems in futile pursuit, it seems only a symbolic action intended to line up the rest of the party.

But I’d like to hear Scott Brown unplugged. Our world is rapidly going post-global. Right now the major political influences as I see them here are the H.R. Bush/Dick Cheney people who are primarily interested in oil in the Middle East. Then the Clinton generation, globalist utopian romantics seeing Bill as World Avatar and Israel as one of his kingdoms, India another, and Obama a secondary footnote.

We need a new approach and new people should bring it. Brown is beholden to Romney, but in the end history may cast him in the leading role. And he may have to take the advice of another New England guide, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and go alone because: “A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the luster of the firmament of bards and sages.” Or the old suits at CPAC whose historic time has passed, looking to market a second act.