Yet, an increasing number on the left believe it can. “That district is becoming ever-so-slightly more progressive over time,” says MassAlliance executive director Georgia Hollister Isman. The district favored Deval Patrick in 2006, for instance, after voting strongly for Republican Mitt Romney in 2002.
Brown also lost a little of his luster this past year, in a roundly condemned performance at King Philip Regional High School in Wrentham.
Brown had been invited to address students about gay marriage, which he has steadfastly opposed. The senator used the opportunity to berate — by name — students who had written nasty things about him on Facebook. The performance included a recitation of profanity-laden entries.
More recently, a mini-controversy has emerged concerning Brown and the owner of the Plainridge horse-race course located in his district — whose interests Brown has aggressively advocated, particularly during debates this spring about expanded gambling in the state. Brown disclosed just a few weeks ago that his teenage daughter co-owns a race horse with the track’s owner.
Long odds
Orozco is clearly not one to be deterred by long odds: at five-foot-two she was Florida’s high-school volleyball player of the year and earned a sports scholarship that made college possible.
More grimly, she went through multiple surgeries and radiation to survive breast cancer — and then helped her mother recover from the same disease just a year later.
That experience 10 years ago pushed Orozco into specializing in therapy for patients going through cancer and other serious medical challenges. The experiences of her patients, in turn, got her involved in the need to reform health-care delivery and coverage.
“Instead of fighting for their lives, they were fighting for their health insurance,” says Orozco.
Her campaign is shaping her message to make her palatable to the social conservatives in the district who might be ready to ditch Brown. She emphasizes that she is a doctor and small-business owner, who has two sons in the public-school system.
MassAlliance, a coalition of progressive organizations, is already helping with field operations, and others are pitching in as well. More will come, particularly when phone-banking begins in earnest this fall.
And, if they truly come to believe they can beat Brown, groups such as MassEquality, MassAlliance, and the Massachusetts Teachers Association can do their own mailings and literature, to make up for what those close to the campaign concede will be a fundraising gap.
The problem, some Democratic activists say, is that if it does start to look like Orozco has a chance, the state GOP will send in everything it’s got. The party can’t afford to lose Brown, who fundraises for other candidates and the party committee.
Then again, everything the state GOP has isn’t very much these days, particularly compared with what the state Democrats and their allies have at their disposal.
To read the “Talking Politics” blog, go to thePhoenix.com/talkingpolitics. David S. Bernstein can be reached atdbernstein@thephoenix.com.
