I really didn’t want to write about Gail Huff Brown. I didn’t meet her until last year, but she lives half a mile from us, and I didn’t want any friction in town. Plus, when I first heard her speak in Portsmouth, she said she would never attack her primary opponents because Republicans are “a family,” and I respected that.
Of course, she allowed Scott Brown, her husband and the former Senator from Massachusetts, to speak right after she did and attack her GOP “relatives,” but I figured that was fair. Amusing even.
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It wasn’t long, of course, before Gail herself started attacking her opponents, particularly apparent frontrunner Matt Mowers. For months she’d been answering questions about the 2020 election results with a cowardly “COVID won.” When Democrats unearthed that Mowers voted in two states in 2016, Gail’s top issue suddenly became “election integrity.”
Both states, New Hampshire and New Jersey, said he had done nothing illegal, but she continued to say he had. Of course, legalities aside, the double voting reminded many that Mowers had been considered a “carpetbagger” in 2020. Gail didn’t mention that, though, because that moniker haunted husband Scott Brown throughout his 2014 senate run, and, indeed, many question Gail’s own ties to New Hampshire.
I started having real doubts when Gail announced in May she had been sounding the alarm about the baby formula shortage “since February.” She said her daughter was having trouble finding formula for her baby, Gail’s grandchild. I found this highly dubious and rather tasteless. Apart from the fact that there was no formula shortage in New England in February, she brought the baby to an event in April and said not a word about the scarce formula.
Who would not have responded if she had asked us to keep an eye out for her? Not a word. Instead, she mostly talked about her “thirty years in Rye.” Trying to dispel that carpetbagger issue, perhaps? She really didn’t talk about any issues until the Q&A portion, when it became apparent she didn’t know about the J-6 political prisoners, wouldn’t take a position on 2A, and had another go at Mowers for double voting. She had to be reminded by a supporter to talk about the border, which had been her “top issue” a month earlier.
Alarm bells went off in my head, but I stayed quiet. Then, this week, Gail says that Matt Mowers “appears stuck in the mud” and “hard right voters” are moving to Karoline Leavitt. Wow. So much for “family.”
The thing that got me is that Gail hasn’t been running as a moderate. One of the first things she said when we met was, “I’m much more conservative than Scott.” To this day, her ads call her a “conservative” and a “Trump Republican.” Now she says she’s the choice for “moderate Republicans.” Her big issue is abortion. Either her ads lie, or she thinks the base is—what? Semi-fascists, like Biden, said last week? Or will she just say whatever is necessary to get elected and back to DC?
So who is Gail Huff Brown? I truly have no idea. I’ve heard her speak several times, but I don’t know what she really believes or what she would do if she won. Would she stand up for those who elected her or be another Mitt Romney? Liz Cheney? No idea. What I do know is, win or lose, after the election, we won’t see her again.
