SAYONARA: Brown’s reach exceeded his grasp.
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There’s something Icarus-like in the US Senate campaign of Matt Brown, who spent several years planning his high-stakes run and then botched a campaign-finance fiasco that contradicted his self-narrative as a reformer.
In an interview after he decided to withdraw from the Democratic primary last week, Brown cited the matter as one of practicality, of his fundraising not being sufficient to overcome the better-funded Sheldon Whitehouse’s advantage in name recognition.
"Had we continued, we would have raised a lot more money,” to the tune of about $2 million for the primary, Brown says. Still, he says, it wouldn’t have been enough to achieve his goals. “I didn’t get into this race to make a statement,” says Brown, whose campaign burned through about $1.5 million. “I got into it to win.”
By withdrawing, Brown faced the writing on the wall, and he won the appreciation of Democrats for gracefully throwing his support to Whitehouse.
Many observers however, see the handling of the campaign finance fiasco that dogged Brown — in which his campaign solicited contributions from the Democratic parties of Maine, Massachusetts, and Hawaii in late 2005, and then asked some of its own big donors to offer contributions to those groups — as the thing that ultimately undermined the campaign. “It could have been a two-day story, and he still would be running for the Senate today if he handled this differently,” says Brown University political science professor Darrell West. “I don’t think he ever admitted that this was improper, and he didn’t get out in front and answer the questions about it. The story dribbled out over days and weeks. That kept him on the front-page in a negative way. So it’s kind of a classic case of how not to handle a campaign problem.”
Brown vaulted into statewide office, taking out Ed Inman — who had the support of the state’s Democratic establishment — when he spent heavily and used an outsider message to win the secretary of state’s office in 2002. The move came after the Providence native organized the Democracy Compact, a worthy effort to increase voting participation, that some nonetheless viewed as a prelude to a political campaign. Within a year of his 2002 victory, Brown had telegraphed his interest in running for the Senate by making a $25,000 donation to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
Asked whether he would do things differently, Brown paused before saying, “I haven’t done that kind of analysis yet. It’s very hard to do the what-ifs and the post-game analysis when it’s over, and to second-guess it. There may be a time when I look back on it and do that type of analysis,” but for now, he says, he’s focused on his work at the secretary of state’s office.
West says he believes Brown “could come back for another [future] run, but he’s going to have to run his campaign in a very different way,” exercising more diligence since “everybody’s going to pay attention to his fundraising approach.”
Brown, who has said he does not plan to run for reelection, sounded uncertain when asked about his plans for the future. “I really believe there are many ways to make a difference. Government service is one way.” While he plans to continue some sort of public service, “Today, I can’t tell you what that way is going to be for me.”