What Can the Herald Do for Brown? (Devalue Patrick Edition)

October 5, 2015

Why anyone would pay the slightest bit of attention to pill-pushing has-been Scott Brown is a mystery to the hardreading staff.

Why any newspaper would put him on its front page is an even bigger one.

But then, we’re talking about the Boston Herald here.

 

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The flirty local tabloid has long carried a torch for the Accidental Senator, and today’s piece just fans the flame.

Brown: Patrick ‘a joke’ as VP candidate

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Former U.S. Sen. Scott Brown mocked the idea of a Deval Patrick veep run on a Joe Biden presidential ticket as a “joke” yesterday, but was quick to add he’d love to see the Democrats go with it.

“Patrick is a joke, please,” Brown told the Herald yesterday after hosting a meet-and-greet for GOP contender Carly Fiorina at his home in Rye, N.H. “I hope that he runs, that way it will be a definite loss.”

The offhanded dismissal drew rebukes from Granite State and Bay State Democrats, who insisted the two-term Massachusetts governor would bolster their party’s slate.

 

Or charge $7500 a day for running.

The only thing more ridiculous than the Herald’s news judgment is Carly Fiorina’s political judgment, which just produced this knee-slapper on the Herald website.

Fiorina would consider Charlie Baker, Scott Brown for posts

Both Gov. Charlie Baker and former Sen. Scott Brown could have positions within Republican presidential contender Carly Fiorina’s White House administration, the former Screen Shot 2015-10-05 at 12.12.43 PMHewlett-Packard CEO told Boston Herald Radio this morning.

“Certainly Charlie Baker is someone that should be considered,” Fiorina said on “Boston Herald Drive” this morning. “I am looking for people who are not afraid to go in and actually challenge the status quo.”

Fiorina added that Brown would also be on her “long list” of potential hires. Brown and his wife, Gail Huff, hosted an event for Fiorina yesterday at his home in Rye, N.H.

 

Her “long list,” eh?

Hey, Scott ‘n’ Gail: That’s Carly’s bread-and-butter letter for your hospitality. Which is to say, just a formality. Don’t get too excited.

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Gail in a Huff Over Scott’s AdvoCare Brownout

July 8, 2015

From our Late to the Pill-Popping Party desk

The Scott Brown AdvoCare Rumpus just keeps getting curiouser and curiousier.

Back story, via the Boston Globe‘s Stephanie Ebbert.

Salesman Brown pursues a weight-loss constituency

brown-tease

It was not the sight of their former senator bare-chested that shocked Scott Brown’s Facebook followers.

They were used to that.

It was the sales pitch accompanying the before-and-after photos of his physique, crediting his recent, dramatic weight loss to a commercial nutrition and fitness plan.

Brown’s testament to the merits of AdvoCare’s “24-day challenge” was met with so many guffaws that within two hours, he posted another note, saying he is not a paid spokesman for the supplement company.

What he didn’t explain is that he’s a salesman.

 

Except he’s not, according to Brown’s wife Gail Huff.

From the Boston Herald’s Inside Track yesterday.

Gail launches weighty defense of hubs Scott

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The wife of former Massachusetts U.S. Sen. Scott Brown leaped to his 
defense yesterday, saying her husband was never a salesman for a controversial diet program, never intended to sell it and was only listed as a distributor of AdvoCare in order to get a 20 percent discount.

“He was never a salesman, he never made a penny from it,” Gail Huff told the Track. “At no point did he ever suggest anyone ever purchase it. He is not selling diet pills.”

 

That’s actually correct. Scott Brown is not selling diet pills – he’s selling diet pill distributorships.

At least according to The Daily Beast’s Olivia Nuzzi, who got this response when she asked Brown for an interview about AdvoCare.

“Olivia … Thanks for emailing me about your interest in Advocare . . . I am here to help you get started. As you can see from my story and pictures, these products from Advocare really do work.”

 

Further, Nuzzi wrote:

Brown is offering me the following: “20-40% off products” if I become an AdvoCare distributor; “Nutrition and Fitness guidance to maximize your results”; and “product regimens to help you reach your goals.”

 

Not to get technical about it, but Nuzzi’s only goal was to expose Scott Brown as a cheap grifter. Which he sorta seems to be.

Exhibit Umpteen:

I asked Brown if he had ever experienced any side effects while taking the product, and he responded, “Not at all I’ve been taking the products with Advocare for 10 years and they have treated me great. Thanks.”

10 years? On Facebook and in his email advertisement, Brown said he had been introduced to the products recently and they are what caused his weight loss.

“Keith has been taking them for 10 years through his baseball career,” Brown said when I told him his response didn’t match the rest of his story. “He turned them on to me a few months ago. Thanks.”

 

Yes – thanks.

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What Can Brown Do for the Herald?

July 14, 2014

Well, for starters, give them an exclusive on his daughter’s big day – and dress. In return, Scott Brown (R-Elsewhere) got this:

 

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And this:

 

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Not only is it a touching story (“The first time Huff saw her daughter in her wedding dress, she wept, she said.”), it’s also exclusive to the flouncy local tabloid. The Boston Globe got bubkes, as a search of the stately local broadsheet indicates.

 

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As you can see, the Globe hasn’t been on Arianna Patrol since that July 10 piece headlined “Kelly Ayotte to officiate at wedding of Scott Brown’s daughter.”

And so she did. You just wouldn’t know it from the Globe.

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Boston Herald: What Can We Do for Brown?

October 1, 2013

Our feisty local tabloid is a regular fanzine for former Sen. Scott Brown (R-Elsewhere). Yesterday he hit the trifecta in the Herald. Today it’s the daily double.

First he gets the full-page treatment in his burgeoning feud with New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-Fundraiser).

 

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The lede has Brown accusing Shaheen of casting “the deciding vote” on Obamacare. Oldest trick in the book: you can say the same of every one of the other 59 votes that got the Affordable Care Act passed.

Nut graf:

I think it’s shameful that she would do that … because I’m not a declared candidate, and for her to infer anything differently is misrepresenting me and her intentions to the people that are allegedly and supposedly giving her money,” he added.

 

Ten bucks to anyone who can diagram that sentence. And, not to get technical about it, he meant “imply.” Fortunately for Brown, a firm grasp of the English language is no longer a prerequisite for high office.

But wait – there’s more in the Boston Brown & Gazette.  For the second straight day the Herald is acting as Brown’s co-broker in the sale of his Wrentham home.

 

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And they say newspapers don’t carry classified ads anymore.

Crosstown at the Boston Globe, the story is less hyperventilating and doesn’t mention Shaheen deciding Obamacare.

 

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But the piece did note that Brown arrived at the New Hampshire function hall “in a dented GMC pickup truck.”

To each his own, eh?

 

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Elizabeth Warrin’ Front Pages

October 25, 2012

Page One of the local dailies reflect – wait for it – two different worlds. (Via the Newseum’s Today’s Front Pages.)

 

 

Start with the Globe piece, your standard-issue mash note.

Family long a bedrock for Elizabeth Warren

Early support helped shape views and career

Years before she became a distinguished Harvard Law professor, a nationally recognized consumer activist, and a presidential appointee, Elizabeth Warren was a working mother whose grasp on the first rung of the career ladder was slipping.

She had moved to Texas for her husband’s career and landed her first job teaching law school. But her toddler and 7-year-old had burned through seven child care arrangements in six months. Nobody was happy.

“My Aunt Bee had called me, and I started to cry,” Warren recalled. “And I said, ‘I just can’t do this. I think I’m going to quit.’ ”

Her aunt calmed her down and instructed her to wipe her nose, Warren recalled.

Then Aunt Bee told her, “ ‘Well, Sweetie, I can’t get there tomorrow. But I can be there Thursday,’ ” Warren said. “And she arrived with seven suitcases and a Pekingese and stayed for 15 years.”

The Herald piece, on the other hand, is more like a bash note.

Union bigs cashing in

But they back Warren, slam Brown for supporting the rich

Hub union bosses, including a prominent Democratic lawmaker, are getting six-figure salaries and perks such as SUVs and credit cards while slamming U.S. Sen. Scott Brown and Republicans for siding with the rich, federal documents show.

State Rep. Martin Walsh (D-Boston) earned $167,911 in 2011 as secretary/treasurer of the Building and Construction Trades Council, while also taking home his $67,000 legislative salary, according to Labor Department financial records submitted by the union group.

The Building Trades organization also paid for a brand new $38,750 Jeep for Walsh to use, documents show.

“I’m not part of that 1 percent,” Walsh told the Herald.

Uh-huh.

So, you might be wondering, where’s Scott Brown’s front-pager in the Globe?

Oh, he got that yesterday.

Modeling years gave Scott Brown an early boost

It was approaching midnight inside a throbbing Studio 54, New York City’s nightclub extra ordinaire and nocturnal epicenter of excess in the 1980s. As bartenders naked to the waist filled goblets of champagne, club cofounder Steve Rubell, famous for plucking favored guests from the surging crowd outside, was showing off his latest “pick.”

His name was Scott Brown. But Rubell, who recognized the 22-year-old Massachusetts man, who had recently won Cosmopolitan magazine’s 1982 “America’s Sexiest Man” contest and posed nude for its centerfold, promptly dubbed him “the Cosmo boy.” When Rubell spotted R. Couri Hay, The National Enquirer celebrity columnist and stringer for People magazine, he led Brown toward him, hoping his guest’s sudden renown might garner the club a mention . . .

Which candidate do you think is happier with the Globe right now?

 

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Rakin’ Akin Edition

August 24, 2012

Missouri Senate hopeless Todd Akin (R-Legitimate Rape) is the rift that keeps on on riving.

From yesterday’s Boston Herald:

Gail Huff touts Scott Brown’s independent spirit

Elizabeth Warren’s attempts to link Scott Brown to the rumpus over U.S. Rep. Todd Akin’s polarizing statements on rape will work to his advantage by distinguishing him from his own party’s anti-abortion platform, the U.S. senator’s wife said yesterday.

“I think it’s a gift to Scott because once again it shows that he’s an independent-minded man that’s not going to follow the doctrine or the dictation of anyone else, including his own party,” said Gail Huff, who is on leave from her television reporting job to campaign for her husband.

“He has two daughters, 24 and 21 years old. He understands better than anyone how important it is that women have the right to make their own decisions. …Here’s another example where he stood up to his party and said, ‘You know what, you’re wrong.’”

(Web video along the same lines here.)

The New York Times, which is sort of the fifth Beatle of the Boston newspaper scene, was even more lovey-dovey:

[Mr. Brown] was the first Republican senator to call on Mr. Akin to quit his race for the Senate. As Mr. Brown told a group of women here on Tuesday, he was feeling a little heady from the experience.

“Gail and I were laying in bed last night and talking a little bit, as we do every night,” he said, “and I said: ‘Honey, can you imagine? Here I am, Scott Brown from Wrentham, and I’ve got a truck that’s got 238,000 miles on it and, you know, something like this comes up and I’m the first guy in the country to even bring it up and tell the guy to step down,’ ” Mr. Brown said.

Yeah . . . except he wasn’t.

From the Boston Globe:

[Brown] spoke out less than 24 hours after Akin made his comment, under an hour after Romney condemned it during an interview with the National Review, and 15 minutes after President Obama ventured into the White House Briefing Room to declare that the American people disagreed with the Missouri congressman.

That’s par for the course for Brown (R-Papaya King), who routinely overstates his routine accomplishments.

File under: What else is new?

 

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