The time to settle ideological scores is in the primaries.
Elect the most conservative candidate possible for the area. If Brown were more conservative, he wouldn’t be running in a dead heat with Coakley. This is the same principle as managing your money: buy things that are durable and nice, but don’t spend beyond your means. In MA, we have a very limited amount of political capital, so a relatively independent conservative is the best we can do.
Finally, at this point, tossing Brown because he meets 90% of what we want and not 100% is asinine and will only make us look bad. We can stop socialised medicine in its tracks. If we don’t do that because Brown is mildly pro-choice, then we’re morons who deserve to hand our country over to the dictators in Washington.
