Awwww…. I know it hurts…let it out… Baltimore Ravens kicking consultant Randy Brown told Angelo Cataldi and The Morning Team today on 94 WIP that the scoreboard in New England was incorrect during that final drive. “The scoreboard was one down behind, the entire last three plays, from what we understand,” Brown said. That caused Billy Cundiff to have to rush on to the field with just seconds left on the play clock to try and make the kick, which he missed. When Cataldi asked Brown if he thought the Patriots did it it on purpose to gain an advantage, Brown replied, “I don’t think you can rule anything out in New England, can you?” Losing such a close game has got to hurt, but this sort of whining is just unbecoming. This guy was the coach directly responsible for the kicker, he’s trying to take the heat off himself and he knows the best way to do that is point fingers at a team and a guy disliked by many in the league. Is Brown trying to suggest that not one person on the Ravens sideline could accurately count downs? Not one of the coordinators let Harbaugh know there was a mistake? If Brown’s looking to blame someone, he can look at his coach, who had a time out he could have used but did not. If the Ravens want to make it to the Super Bowl, they’ve got to be honest about their weaknesses and fix them instead of looking for villains to blame. UPDATE – Harbaugh responded earlier today . “Any suggestion the wrong down info was a deliberate effort to affect the outcome of the game is nonsense,” Harbaugh said Wednesday, per Jeff Zrebiec of the Baltimore Sun. Good for him. Unless teams have strong evidence, they shouldn’t throw around these sort of accusations.
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No Crying in Football<br>Update: Harbaugh: "nonsense."
Does Scott Brown have a Tea Party problem? For the second straight quarter, the Republican senator from Massachusetts has been outraised by his likely Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren. Brown isn’t exactly in the poorhouse. He raised a respectable $3.2 million during the fourth quarter of 2011 and his $12.8 million cash on hand is more than double Warren’s. But Warren’s impressive $5.7 million haul over the last three months of 2011 is 50 percent higher than Brown’s fundraising over the same period. The cash came in handy for a $1.6 million television ad buy in December. While Warren touts her support from small donors — she has reported that the average contribution to her campaign is just $64 — in the past she has raised up to 70 percent of her campaign moolah from out-of-state donors. Some of these donors could be from Wall Street firms that benefit from federal bailouts. Warren told the Boston Herald last week that she was accepting donations from Wall Streeters who “want reform.” The best way to prove you want reform, naturally, is to vote with your dollars for Elizabeth Warren. Warren has also become a genuine phenomenon among grassroots liberals across the country. She is both a darling of and an intellectual influence behind the Occupy Wall Street movement (despite earnings that make her a member of the 1 percent ). Many fervently hoped Warren would be appointed head of the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She’s collecting lots of money from liberal voters who would now like her to hold a different job: United States senator. Just a year ago, it was Scott Brown who was collecting vast sums of money from conservatives nationwide who hoped claiming Ted Kennedy’s old Senate seat — and securing the 41st vote necessary to sustain filibusters — would halt the Obamacare juggernaut. That was then, this is now. The president’s health care bill became law despite Brown’s opposition. “He had his uses,” a correspondent wrote to me about the disparity between Brown and Warren’s recent fundraising. “Tea Partiers needed him and he needed us.” Brown has since angered many of the out-of-state conservatives who sent money to his campaign with his support for Planned Parenthood and the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Brown also voted for Dodd-Frank and backed President Obama’s recess appointment of Richard Cordray for the CFPB post once intended for Warren. Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips accused Brown of throwing conservatives “under the bus” and said the senator was motivated primarily by “self-preservation and self-promotion.” “I think there will be a primary challenge,” Greater Boston Tea Party president Christen Varley predicted in late 2010. No serious primary challenger has emerged, nor is one likely to. Even many of Brown’s critics acknowledge that his independent streak is designed to be competitive in Massachusetts’ tough political environment. Brown will be running for reelection at the same time as Obama, who is likely to carry the commonwealth even if former Gov. Mitt Romney is the Republican presidential nominee. On Election Day Brown will need Massachusetts’ unaffiliated voters more than Tea Party sympathizers living far from New England. Where the drop-off in conservative support could hurt Brown, however, is in out-of-state fundraising. Brown can’t count on the kind of outside help he enjoyed in the special election, while Warren is holding successful money bombs. Conservative money will flow to other Republican candidates in the busy 2012 election cycle and Warren will be the new sensation. Crossroads GPS has done some advertising in Massachusetts — Warren has called the group’s adviser Karl Rove Brown’s “wing man” — though Brown isn’t encouraging third party ads. Many grassroots conservatives seem at best indifferent to Brown’s fate this time around, however. Scott Brown is the rare Massachusetts Republican who has never lost an election. He knows how to win in hostile territory and under difficult circumstances. But this time around, some conservatives won’t lift a finger to help him even if necessary to keep an Occupy ally out of the Senate. Brown will have to concentrate on the late Bay Stater Tip O’Neill’s maxim that all politics is local instead.
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No Cash From Conservatives
The Boston Herald reports that Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic Senate candidate who positions herself as a foe of Wall Street, is not opposed to taking Wall Street campaign donations. “There are people on Wall Street who actually believe we need better rules, fairer rules,” Warren is quoted as saying. Obviously, the Wall Street people who help fund her campaign “want reform.” She has also attacked Karl Rove, who she says is acting as “Scott Brown’s wing man.” Rove is an adviser to American Crossroads, a conservative group that has run ads in Massachusetts critical of Warren’s support for bank bailouts. Brown’s spokesman zinged Warren: “Professor Warren is a serial hypocrite. She attacks Wall Street while she’s taking their campaign cash. Now she’s attacking Scott Brown for outside ads that he has condemned and she has cheered on. You don’t need to be a Harvard professor to see through Warren’s political doublespeak.” Clearly team Brown is trying to make a play for the voters who would rather be governed by the first 400 people listed in the Boston phone book than the Harvard faculty, as the late William F. Buckley, Jr might say. I noted yesterday that Warren hauled in $5.7 million last quarter, more than Brown raised over the same time period.
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Elizabeth Warren Wants Good Wall Street Cash
Yeah, I know he’s a Mass Republican but he’s been about as unreliable as they come. (Briefing Room) — Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) ripped House Republicans for voting to move the Senate-passed payroll tax cut extension to a conference committee. “It angers me that House Republicans would rather continue playing politics than find solutions,” Brown
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RINO Sen. Scott Brown Slams House Republicans For Second Day In A Row…
Joel Gehrke: ” Tina Brown: Professor Obama ‘doesn’t like his job’ ” Sean Trende: ” Obama’s 2012 Chances and Democratic Demographic Dreaming ”
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Happy Hour: Democratic Demographic Dreaming
