When I heard Republican Senatorial nominee Scott Brown promise that if sent to Washington by the voters of Massachusetts, he’d be “independent”, it brought me back to a night thirteen years ago at Mechanic’s Hall in Worcester.  It was the fifth of eight debates between the immensely popular Republican governor of Massachusetts, Bill Weld, and incumbent Democrat John Kerry in the 1996 race for the Senate seat held by Kerry for two terms.

 

Here’s some of what the late David Nyhan wrote about Kerry’s tactics in the debate two days afterwards:

 

Every time Kerry worked in the underscore line “That’s the difference between you and me, Governor,” it helped draw the Democrat-Republican fault line.  Weld has had a good summer, generating lots of favorable headlines, as any governor can. He had a sensational August, when Kerry’s campaign foolishly let the other guy spend $800,000 in uncontested TV ad dollars.

 

But it’s after Labor Day. Weld is running out of wiggle room, as a Republican eventually does in Massachusetts. He’s trying to run for governor the third time, but as some sort of ersatz “urban Democrat,” in his own words. He praises Clinton to the skies, never mentions Bob (”Who?”) Dole, denies he’d lick Newt Gingrich’s boots and prays Bay State voters never figure out how Mississippi Trent Lott really runs the Senate.

 

What really sticks out in my mind from that night (yes, I was there) was when Kerry asked Weld whether he would, if elected, vote for North Carolina’s Jesse Helms to be the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  Weld mumbled something but Kerry wouldn’t let up until Weld finally blurted out “No” which caused a voice in my head to say “I hope Weld never needs anything from Jesse Helms.”

 

Kerry won the race, 52 to 45, a margin that only emerged from the too-close-to-call zone in the election’s final days.  A year later President Bill Clinton nominated Weld to serve as US Ambassador to Mexico (Weld had remained good friends with Hillary Clinton since the two worked as legal counsels for the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate hearings). 

 

Long bored with being governor of Massachusetts, Weld resigned that office and started brushing up on his Spanish.  All that was needed was for the Republican controlled Senate to vote on his nomination.  But Ambassadorial confirmation hearings were held before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee which was chaired by —– Jesse Helms.  Since Chairman Helms never got around to scheduling a hearing, Weld was never confirmed as Ambassador and his name was eventually withdrawn.  Weld moved on to New York and new adventures, his independence intact.