MA-Sen: Scott Brown's naked ploy

Scott Brown, the GOP nominee for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts, claims he's never heard of the Tea Party movement:

He also claimed that he was unfamiliar with the "Tea Party movement," when asked by a reporter. When told that different people labeled him a conservative, moderate and a liberal Republican, he responded "I’m a Scott Brown Republican."

On the face of it, disassociating himself with teabaggers seems like a naked ploy by Scott Brown to avoid turning off moderate voters by exposing them to his long record of hard right positions.

Given the centrality of the tea party movement in Republican politics these days, it's inconceivable that Scott Brown unaware of it, and sure enough, over at Salon, Mike Madden found evidence undercutting Brown's claim: a fundraiser for Brown hosted by Friends of the Tea Party.

So Scott Brown says he wants to be a different kind of politician, but when asked if he's heard of the most active right-wing movement in America just days before an election in Democratic Massachusetts, Brown claims ignorance...even though one of the organizations in that movement of that movement hosted a fundraiser for him just days earlier.

Even though it's obvious Brown knows who they are, one wonders how Massachusetts teabaggers will react to Brown's diss? Will they take their balls and go home? Will Brown have to swallow his words? Or will he somehow wiggle out of the jam he's put himself in?

Talk about needing to be slippery when wet...