Scott Brown visits Western Massachusetts

This morning, Senate candidate Scott Brown came to Holyoke to fire up the troops in the Brown campaign's Western Massachusetts headquarters. I grabbed my new Flip camera and headed off to get a handshake and some pictures.

Scott arrived in his green truck and made his way to meet the people:


Here he is working the crowd which extends down to the far American flag. I would estimate the crowd at around a hundred people, up at 8:45am in the morning.


Here's one homemade sign. Other good once were "I'm not being paid to hold this sign," "Red Sox Fans for Brown," and a Celtics jersey with "Brown 41" on the back.


And here's a brief video of Brown leaving campaign headquarters after addressing the volunteers. At the end you can hear someone yell "Vote on Tuesday!"

I headed into headquarters afterwards and asked if I could get a bumper sticker. A pleasant lady responded "we're out of everything." Back out on the street, a gentleman was casually chatting with some Brown supporters and I overheard him talking about the health reform bill working through Congress. He was clearly upset with the employer mandates and flatly said he would have to lay off some workers if it passed, presumably to get under the threshold for a small-business exemption. (Totally true).

There were a number of news crews present so I'll have to see if I'm on TV tonight. If you're reading this Western Massachusetts, I’m the tall, geeky guy wearing a green flannel shirt and a red jacket.

Scott Brown will be at a People's Rally this afternoon at 3:30pm in Worcester, MA. Get out and vote on Tuesday!

One final note: I saw exactly one Martha Coakley sign on my drive to-and-from Holyoke, including a detour through Northampton. By contrast, I saw at least 15 Brown signs, probably closer to 20. I even saw two Alan Khazei signs.