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politics and politicians Title: Gop Sen. Scott Brown Denounces Romney Comments Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) came out in opposition to GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney's controversial comments that were made public last night, an attempt to distance himself from a candidate that remains deeply unpopular in Massachusetts. The candidate joins Republican candidate for Senate in Connecticut Linda McMahon in coming out against the statements, making them thus far the only two Republican candidates for Senate to denounce Romney's remarks on the "47 percent." Romney drew fire from Democrats for commenting, at a fundraiser packed with wealthy donors, that nearly half of Americans will vote for President Obama no matter what, and that those "47 percent" of Americans "are dependent upon government ... believe they are victims," and believe the government is responsible for them, adding "my job is not to worry about those people." The Republican candidate scrambled to clarify his remarks during an impromptu press conference last night, explaining that his position was "not elegantly stated" and that he was indeed concerned with all Americans, but the Obama campaign seized on the moment as a fundraising opportunity. And Brown is now out in opposition to the comments, saying in an email to The Hill that Romney's views don't reflect "the way I view the world." "That’s not the way I view the world. As someone who grew up in tough circumstances, I know that being on public assistance is not a spot that anyone wants to be in. Too many people today who want to work are being forced into public assistance for lack of jobs," he said in the email. Brown said that the large volume of Americans receiving public assistance and the growth in the food stamp program are part of the reasons he's running for Senate, as Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren's policies would lead to hundreds of thousands of lost jobs. "Elizabeth Warren's job-killing policies will force even more people onto public assistance," he said. It's in Brown's best interest to come out in opposition to Romney, who faced a 33-percentage-point deficit on Obama in the most recent poll of Massachusetts voters. He needs to prove to voters in the deep-blue state that he can serve as a centrist, rather than in lockstep with the Republican Party. Brown remains a vulnerable incumbent, with a slate of new polls out over the past two days showing Warren ahead of the senator by various margins. McMahon faces that same challenge running in Connecticut, where Obama leads Romney by 7 percentage points in the last poll, and where he won in 2008. Though the Obama campaign has continued to hammer Romney on the comments, few other Republican candidates have come out in opposition to them, indicating this remains a delicate issue within the party and GOP leaders might still be taking time to decide how to move forward with it.
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