Brown’s Optics – Known By The Companies He Keeps

Scott Brown is a fine man – he’s personable, charming, never fails to ask after Mar-Mar’s health, and has a sense of humor: “Tell Mar-Mar I’m praying for her……… Not for you, though! (wink)”.

Personal charm and integrity are, however, not relevant to his electability, but rather, as Skip says “Consistency breeds Trust, yields Votes”. What Brown and his backers don’t seem to grasp is that the nominally conservative candidate who had blue collar types declaring in 2010 “Me and all my Democrat buddies too – he’ll protect our rights”, had alienated all those voters in 2012 with a combination of bad votes (Dodd Frank) and careless statements (such as on gun laws after Newtown), which most definitely DO NOT protect those rights.

What is worse is that Brown has entered into a series of consulting gigs, without considering the optics as he runs for election from (slightly) more conservative New Hampshire. Let me count the ways:

• Joined “Law and Lobby” firm, Nixon Peabody and would specialize in “…business and governmental affairs as they relate to the financial services industry”.
• Consulting agreement with GDSI, an arms manufacturer shell corporation, with rich stock options, that he was forced to abandon.
• Joined the board of Kadant, a legitimate company… that just happens to ship quite a few jobs overseas, and also delivered rich stock options for his ‘work’.

Nixon Peabody – This one has erupted into a catfight between the MayDay PAC, who pointed it out, and the Brown campaign, but it’s actually quite simple: The Hill reported in March 2013, that Brown had apparently given up on seeking electied office, and had joined the “Law and Lobby firm of Nixon-Peabody”, and specifically:

The Massachusetts Republican, also a former state senator, will concentrate his practice on “business and governmental affairs as they relate to the financial services industry as well as on commercial real estate matters”

(Emphasis added) No doubt just to feed the family, but:
Trading on his name and connections as a former Senator at a lobbying firm, even if he nominally wasn’t a ‘lobbyist’, AND working with customers in financial services – the same ones he just regulated by helping pass Dodd-Frank.

“During my time in politics, I never hesitated to reach across the aisle to work with members of any political party to secure a preferable outcome. My approach is consistent with the way Nixon Peabody does business and I believe we can be successful together,” Brown said in a statement.

When the Mafia pulls tricks like this, it’s called “the protection racket” and is against the law, but when former lawmakers work at lobbying firms (even if they are not actually ‘lobbyists’) to help the regulated companies navigate the same regulations they helped put into place, it’s called “business as usual”, and is legal???

GDSI – I’ve written extensively about Brown’s relationship with GDSI here and here, but the key takeaway is this:
If your intent is to stay out of office, and parlay your legislative experience and connections into a comfortable semi-retirement, it’s OK if some of those ventures are high-risk, high reward. The problem with GDSI was that it was all too obviously NOT a traditional startup, but was, in fact, a pump-n-dump shell corporation whose principals were already embroiled in legal troubles when Brown joined them.
If Brown went in with his eyes open, he obviously did not intend running for office again, and if he missed the clues, he’s not really the guy we want “carefully reading every bill”.

Then there’s Kadant Corporation – actually the least objectionable of Brown’s gigs. It’s a legitimate company in the wood pulp products business (paper, fiberboard…), which makes the machinery needed to process the pulp, and has multiple offices overseas, where the machinery is produced close to their customers. Sounds great! What could go wrong??
Like I said, nothing wrong with Kadant, other than fodder for the Democrats, and believe me, they are all over it. Late August, The Nashua Telegraph ran an article by Kevin Landrigan which pointed out in great detail how Kadant, which was paying Brown in stock options for his service on the Board, shipped jobs and retained profits, overseas – red meat for true blue Democrats!

To sum up: The appearance of being a lobbyist, the appearance of promoting a shell corporation, and the appearance of sending jobs overseas. With the exception of GDSI, there’s nothing shady here, and certainly nothing shady about Brown personally, but “Ye shall be known by the compan(ies) that ye keep” – it implies a lack of attention to the details.

Let’s hope the voters choose wisely, because the Dems are ready for this! (And the NHGOP will own any failure which results from their choices)