An Insider's Perspective on the 'Massachusetts Miracle'

 

 

We asked our good friend, Brad Marston (running fortn_img_2118 MA State Rep), to share with us his thoughts on Scott Brown’s campaign.  
 
Marston worked closely with Brown and had a first-hand opportunity to experience the “Massachusetts Miracle". We’d like to especially thank Brad Marston, and everyone else, who had an instrumental hand in this victory.
 
Here are Brad Marston's thoughts:
  
   
 
"When I was asked to comment for this article, I was reminded of probably my favorite tweet from the phenomenon that became @ScottBrownMA.  
 
TigreFan98 tweeted, 'Remember @BradMarston was 4 @ScottBrownMA before it was cool'.
 
I met Scott at a fundraiser he held in the spring of 2009.  It was a small-dollar affair and most of us speculated that he was building up a campaign chest and contacts for a potential run for Lieutenant Governor.  He was open and approachable and, like most people who have met Scott, I took an immediate liking to him.  This was also the same time as the Tax Day Tea Parties.  I helped Christen Varley organize the Boston event and Scott spoke at the Worcester Tax Day Tea Party organized by Ken Mandile.
 
The success of those two events and others around the state gave me my first inkling that the mood in Massachusetts was changing.  Thousands of people came out to express their concerns over the huge increases in spending and debt, the looming health care overhaul and what many saw as the over-reaching of the Federal government versus State sovereignty.  What really struck me was how many people said, “I’ve never been to a rally like this before". Something was changing and a new group of citizens was mobilizing.
 
At the Tax Day Tea Party, I gave the “What’s Next?” speech.  One of the points I stressed was to have everyone go home and look at their address books, both on and off-line, identify 10 people that they thought might feel the same way, get in touch with them and start communicating.
 
For the Independence Day Tea Party we created a Website, a Facebook Group and a BostonTeaParty Twitter account which, all together, had nearly 2000 unique members.  At the event itself, we collected 900 e-mail addresses, with nearly 500 from Massachusetts.  The same thing was happening with Tea Party groups, 9-12 Project folks and other netroots organizations all over the state and the country.  The foundation of a bottom-up grassroots organization had built itself and was looking to get increasingly active.
 
I was delighted when the Brown Campaign Field Director, Brad Hansen, called me and asked me to be the Boston Coordinator for the Nomination Signature Drive to get Scott on the ballot for the primary. Although much of the credit goes to Chuck Smiarowski of the Greater Boston Young Republicans and Rich Wheeler of the Massachusetts YRs, the fact that we were able to collect 1200+ signatures for Scott in Boston was another indication that something was brewing. In fact, the second weekend we went out, the campaign had gotten us Brown bumper stickers for the backs of our clip boards.  People saw those and started approaching us, asking to sign for Scott.
 
tn_scottandbradcampaigningI also remember campaigning with Scott during the primary when  his “entourage” consisted of me, a staffer and the eventual Boston Campaign and Deputy Campaign Coordinators, Rob Fortes and Shawn Burke.  We were standing outside a local supermarket and Scott was shaking hands with people one by one and either he or one of us would hand people a flyer.  We would later check the shopping carts and retrieve any flyers that people had left to reuse.  It was a far cry from the campaign that would eventually attract crowds in the thousands and raise $12 million online.
 
As I mentioned earlier, I took an interest in Scott’s campaign for what I thought would be Lt. Governor.  I visted his State Senate Campaign website and made some suggestions to his Chief of Staff, Greg Casey.  I even went so far as to create a prototype Ning site for him.  I had been very involved in the McCain e-campaign as a volunteer and am a strong believer in the power of social media.  Rob Willington, Scott’s Social Media Director, was often on my campaign website, BradMarston.com, which is also built on the Ning platform.  As an Admin for the site, I can see who is online at any given time and couldn’t quite understand why Rob was there so often.  Then I saw "Brown Brigade" with its various local Brigades.  I am not suggesting that Rob wouldn’t have come up with the same thing by himself but they do say, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery".
 
The other thing I was doing behind the scenes was talking to Tea Party Leaders from across the country about getting behind Scott’s Campaign.  These included some of the biggest Tea Parties such as, Nashville, St. Louis and Dallas, which had attracted tens of thousands of attendees.  The calls also included long time Conservative Activists such as, Eric Odom and Michael Johns.  I had grown increasingly frustrated by the constant barrage of  "CALL YOUR CONGRESSMAN” or “SEND A FAX TO STOP HEALTHCARE”, when Scott Brown became the potential 41st vote to put a brake on the entire Obama, Reid, and Pelosi agenda.
 
This was in mid December and it was having at least sometn_bands effect.  I spoke to Adam Dublisky, the Campaign’s Press Secretary, at a fundraiser and he said, “I don’t know exactly what you are doing but we’re seeing a big increase in online activity".  At about the same time, I had another conference call with the National Tea Party people. Scott was way behind in the polls and they had just come off the Hoffman defeat in the New York 23rd.  Others were involved in local races. Frustrated, I finally said “Folks, he’s the 41st vote.  Either get behind him or stop wasting my F@#&ing time" and hung up.
 
I got a few apologetic e-mails and offers to get in touch with Michelle Malkin, Fox News and others, on behalf of Scott.  This was in late December so, when the first Rasmussen Poll showing Scott within sin gle digits and thus a real chance to win, the groundwork had already been laid and the floodgates opened. This netroot's effort worked parallel to the terrific strategies of Rob Willington and Online Fundraising Director, Patrick Ruffini, and all of a sudden Scott was everywhere online. His Facebook fans, Twitter followers and YouTube views skyrocketed and money came pouring in.
 
If Scott were doing a standout or an event, volunteers would create Facebook Events, independent of the campaign, and get 40-80 attendees almost overnight.  We did that for the rally before the final television debate and had 150 people show up and stand in the freezing cold for nearly two hours. It was at that debate when Scott responded to David Gergen’s question regarding Kennedy’s seat with his now famous, “It’s the people’s seat”.  It went viral overnight.
 
I think one of the most important things about the excitement behind Scott’s campaign was that he made it so easy to support him because he always made it feel like it was about "you".  When we were doing the Signature Drive, he called me on my cell phone saying he understood that I had my own campaign to run and saying how much he appreciated my help.  At a stand-out before a debate on WBZ radio, even though he was running late, he took the time to come over and thank not only his supporters but the people holding signs for Coakley as well.  We went to a local restaurant to watch the debate via live streaming video.  When the link wouldn’t work, Mike Harrington, Scott’s Advance Man, called him and Scott, clearly exhausted, came over to thank us. He did the same thing after the debate at U-Mass., Boston.  I called into Pundit Review Radio on WRKO 680 AM when he was on and the first words out of his mouth were, “Brad, I know I still owe you a check for your campaign.”  I was blown away.
 
I spent the last week of the campaign helping run the Boston Call Center and I hadn’t seen anything like it since working for the McCain Campaign before and during the New Hampshire primaries.  In Boston, we always had more people than phones and often took over the Massachusetts GOP Office and phones. When we ran out of space there, people would spontaneously form up into groups and go hold signs at impromptu stand-outs.  I remember the Sunday before election day when a woman who had led a group called back to ask me if it was all right if they stayed out a couple more hours as they were getting such a great reception.  It was amazing to witness and I can say that I was incredibly proud to answer my phone, “Brown for US Senate", Brad Marston speaking".
 
tn_steeleandbrad
 
So now Scott is on his way to DC and I am looking forward to my campaign for State Representative in the Eighth Suffolk.  He didn’t win any precincts in my district but did improve 9 points versus Kerry Healey for Governor in 2006 and outperformed here, relative to Boston and Cambridge as a whole.  I am incredibly excited for many of my fellow GOP office seekers running in districts that went overwhelmingly for Brown.  I don’t think any of us need to change our message as they were always similar to Scott’s, “keep taxes low, promote job growth, restrict government’s growth and most of all, the need for balance in government".  If we learn anything, it is to remember that all the seats that we are running for are the People’s seats.  We must dedicate ourselves to gain the right to obtain them and, more importantly, to hold them.  Those are rights only granted by the voters.  Realizing that, is the real start of a new revolution in Massachusetts."
 
 
 
Candidate for State Representative
Massachusetts - Eighth Suffolk District
BradMarston.com
 
 
 
 

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