Soundbite: Scott Brown Is A Better Version Of Sarah Palin

“There’s the sex vibe, the exhibitionism and preening, the weird family stuff, the phony authenticity, and the euphoric sense of his own arrival…while Brown may be Palin-like he may actually be much better than Palin. “

— Michael Wolff remarks on the “a powerful new strain of politician, first personified by Palin” and also points out Palin and Brown have shared similar beauty moments: “For Palin there was the beauty queen turn, and for Brown the Cosmo centerfold.” Except, arguably, Palin got, shall we say, slightly more pushback for baring less of herself in her younger days. More on this new strain:

He’s established that he’s mastered the new political discipline in which your bona fides are established by your lack of bona fides, your modesty and aw-shucksness by your hunger for media attention, your moral virtue by a wink.

Peggy Noonan, meanwhile, takes a slightly less dire (more romantic?) view of things:

For Mr. Brown now, everything depends on execution. He made the Olympics. Now he has to do the swan dive, with a billion people watching. And then he has to do it again. He needs to serve the country the way he campaigned for votes—earnest, open, not beholden to interest or party. And he needs to avoid the Descent of the Congressional Vampires, who’ll attempt to claim his victory as their own and suck from his neck until he’s a pale and lifeless husk.

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