The Boston Globe, November 20, 2009

By Brian C. Mooney

Scott Brown was not always the self-assured state senator, lawyer, National Guard officer, triathlete, and Republican candidate for US Senate that he is today. Far from it.

He was once a shaggy-haired 12-year-old growing up in Wakefield, drifting into trouble. His parents divorced when he was a year old, he said, and each remarried three times.

Asked if he had ever been arrested, Brown, choking up at times, related a story he said he had never told:

“My mom was on welfare a little bit, and, you know, I lived with my grandparents, I lived with my aunt, whatever. I was a jerk. I had some issues. You know, I was lost. . . . Mom was always working. . . . There was some violence in there where I would be sticking up for my mom and sisters. . . . I may get a little emotional. . . . And one day I was out with some older kids. . . . We were in Salem. . . . I had a pair of farmer overalls, and I stuck some records in them. . . . I was walking out, and a guy caught me.

“And so I was arrested and went over to Salem District Court, and Judge [Samuel] Zoll . . . gets me in his chambers, and he says: ‘So, tell me about yourself. I see you like music.’ I said, ‘Yeah, I love music. I like Zeppelin and Black Sabbath and Grand Funk, all that stuff.’ He says, ‘What else do you do?’ And I said, ‘I play . . . basketball, and I like to run.’ He said, ‘How good are you?’ And I said, ‘Well, I score about 30 or 40 points a game.’ He says, ‘Do you have any brothers or sisters?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, a half-brother and some half-sisters,’ and he says, ‘Wow, that’s great. . . . Do they look up to you?’ And I said, ‘Absolutely.’ He said, ‘That’s fantastic.’ . . . He . . . looks me right in the eye [and says], ‘How do you think they’d like to see you play basketball in jail?’ ’’

“I was, like, ‘Whoaaa.’ . . . He says, ‘I want you to write me a 1,500-word essay on that very topic, and I want it next week.’ That was the last time I ever stole, the last time I ever thought about stealing. . . . The other day I was at Staples, and something was in my cart that I didn’t pay for. I had to bring it back because . . . I thought of Judge Zoll.’’

The underdog

Scott Philip Brown, now 50, is an endangered breed in Massachusetts politics: a Republican state legislator, one of five in the 40-member Senate. But he does not consider the GOP’s minority status a big handicap in the special election to fill the seat of the late Edward M. Kennedy.

He believes voters are alarmed by the brand of expansive government practiced by President Obama, the Democratic Congress, and the Bay State’s all-Democratic delegation.

“I’m going to be the only person down there who is going to be the independent voter and thinker,’’ Brown said.

Since the mid-1980s, he has won nine consecutive elections, including three terms in the House and a special election in 2004 to fill the state Senate seat of Democrat Cheryl Jacques, who left to lead a national gay rights group.

“I’ve always been the underdog in one shape or form,’’ Brown said.

His narrow victory in the 2004 special, over Jacques’s chief aide, marked an upset, given that the election was held on the day that Senator John F. Kerry was vying for the Democratic nomination in the state’s presidential primary.

Brown’s Senate district snakes 40 miles from liberal suburbs west of Route 128 in the north to more conservative communities along the Rhode Island border in the south. It is more affluent, independent, and less Democratic than the state as a whole.

By any measure, Brown is among the Senate’s more conservative members, but his record does not fit neatly into an ideological box. He calls himself “fiscally conservative and socially conscious.’’

His voting record wins high marks from business and gun owner groups and Citizens for Limited Taxation. Brown receives low grades from the National Organization for Women, the Massachusetts Teachers Association, and the AFL-CIO.

One exception is that Brown scored a perfect 100 percent in 2007 from the Massachusetts Audubon Society, although he scored below the Senate average in prior years.

Brown favors a mix of “solar, wind, nuclear, limited drilling’’ as new energy sources but opposes the wind farm proposed for Nantucket Sound because of the location.

“It’s like putting turbines on Boston Common,’’ he said.

He voted for a regional version of the proposed federal cap-and-trade law to curb carbon emissions, but says now that the vote was a mistake because the prototype for Northeastern states has increased energy prices. Brown said he would oppose the federal bill.

Brown supported Massachusetts health care overhaul in 2006 and favors elements advanced in the congressional debate about a national overhaul. But he said he would oppose the bills now moving through Congress because they would help other states at the expense of Massachusetts.

On abortion rights, Brown is basically in favor but with nuance. “Roe v. Wade is the law of the land, and I don’t plan on overturning it, but I’ve always felt that, you know, I’m against partial-birth abortions and believe in parental consent, a strong parental notification law,’’ Brown said, adding that he would not apply an abortion rights litmus test in Supreme Court confirmations.

Brown’s record is modest in terms of legislative initiatives, though he is an acknowledged leader in the Senate on issues affecting military veterans and a champion of stronger laws to punish sexual offenders and protect children from them.

“He comes across as kind of a guy’s guy, but as I got to know him, my opinion changed quite a bit,’’ said Laurie Myers, president of Community VOICES, a group that advocates for tougher sexual predator laws. “When you first meet him, you don’t realize what a compassionate person he is.’’

State Senator Richard R. Tisei of Wakefield, leader of the Republican minority in the Senate, said: “People think [Brown] is more conservative than he is because of his position on gay marriage.’’

Brown has been a vocal opponent of same-sex marriage and in the past has been an advocate for a ballot question to amend the state constitution and ban same-sex marriage.

He has been the bête noire of gay rights activists since 2001, when he said it was “not normal’’ for Jacques and her partner to have children, and referred to Jacques’s role in the relationship as “alleged family responsibilities.’’ Brown quickly apologized and said he chose his words poorly.

Activists have neither forgotten nor forgiven.

“Scott Brown has demonstrated a persistent antagonism toward equality’’ for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender community, said Scott Gortikov, executive director of MassEquality, an advocacy group. “He’s not someone who even likes or tolerates gay people or their families.’’

Brown responded that “it was never about hating or disliking any particular group because of their sexual orientation.

“When I read the headlines in Bay Windows or any other groups - you know, ‘gay-hating Scott Brown’ - it’s mean-spirited and certainly a misrepresentation,’’ he said, “especially when I have the same position as Barack Obama,’’ who, like Brown, favors civil unions.

Brown’s flair for being politically incorrect continued in 2007. Appearing before students at King Philip High School in Wrentham, he addressed nasty Internet attacks against him and his family for his views on gay marriage. Brown read verbatim to students some of the postings, two of which included stark profanity, igniting another controversy. He later apologized for repeating the vulgarities.

“Do I regret it? No, I don’t,’’ Brown said recently. “I think about it, certainly. I would have handled it differently.’’

On the Guard

Brown is a driven man, in his own words, a Type A personality.

“I’m always doing something, whether I’m home watching TV, I’m always maybe licking envelopes or writing notes to people,’’ he said. “If I’m riding my [stationary] bike, I’m reading a newspaper or watching the news.’’

A fitness fanatic, he is a triathlete, competing in races of long-distance swimming, bicycling, and running. He described his workout regimen, which begins each day by 5 a.m.

“I’d go out and jump in the lake and do a swim for a mile, then hop on the bike and do a quick 10 miles, and then run three,’’ he said, adding that he does this every other day, sometimes daily.

“I need to,’’ he said. “It’s part of who I am.’’

Brown was a basketball star and senior cocaptain at both Wakefield High School, where he was also Middlesex League MVP, and at Tufts University, where his long-range shooting earned him the sobriquet “Downtown Scotty Brown.’’

He remains a physical specimen despite knee surgery after a cycling accident and enjoys talking about his physical prowess.

Of his recent physical test at the Army National Guard, where he has served for 30 years, he said: “I maxed it. I did like 13:20 for two miles, maxed the pushups, maxed the situps. Meanwhile, the 18-, 19-, and 20-year-olds are, like, dying.’’

A lieutenant colonel and lawyer in the judge advocate general corps, Brown has not been called up for duty in Iraq or Afghanistan but said he spent about 10 days in Paraguay in 2005 and a week in Kazakhstan in 2007 for a disaster and counterterrorism exercise.

He is not shy about talking about his abilities and achievements.

Guard rules mandate retirement in two years, which irks Brown.

“I’m probably one of the most qualified soldiers in the entire Massachusetts’’ Guard, he said. “I have enlisted service, I have infantry, quartermaster, JAG, I’m airborne qualified, I’ve been to all the courses. I know what I’m doing, and they’re kicking me out because I’m 50 years old.’’

Brown was actually dropped from the Guard for about five months in 2005 after he was passed over for promotion a second time.

He said he had failed to complete a course required to advance above the rank of major, and, despite support from Governor Mitt Romney, was denied a waiver during an appeal to Washington.

A few months later, he and many other officers around the country were reinstated and promoted by wartime extension boards, Brown said, and by that time, he had completed the course work. Politics was not a factor, he asserted.

“This is today’s Army,’’ he said. “. . . If I’m not qualified, I don’t get promoted.’’

The family guy

His candidacy may be stirring Republican dreams of a Bay State revival, but in some circles, Brown is the third most famous person in his family.

His wife of 23 years is Gail Huff, a veteran reporter at WCVB-TV, and their daughter Ayla is better-known than both. In 2006, she was a finalist on “American Idol,’’ and, after a phenomenal basketball career at Noble and Greenough School, she won a scholarship to Boston College, where she is a four-year starter.

As students, Brown and Huff were models and actors in television commercials. They met at a state regulatory board, where they were attempting to recoup fees from agents who had stiffed them.

After Brown announced his candidacy for the Kennedy seat, Cosmopolitan magazine reprised its 1982 “America’s Sexiest Man’’ photo spread of Brown, including one photo of him in the nude.

A 22-year-old Boston College Law School student at the time, Brown today answers questions about his youthful moment of fame with an air of weariness.

“You don’t see anything,’’ he said. “It’s Cosmo, not Playgirl. I know the gossip newspapers had fun with it.’’

He was not contemplating a career in politics at the time.

“I was only thinking about paying for law school,’’ Brown said. The magazine paid him $1,000, he recalled.

For all the demands of the Legislature, a law practice, the Guard, and a campaign, Brown still sees his family role as the priority. That means a breakneck schedule and 195,000 miles on his GMC Canyon truck in 3 1/2 years.

One day this month, he drove to T.F. Green Airport in Rhode Island to pick up his younger daughter, Arianna, a freshman at Syracuse University, donned a tuxedo at home in Wrentham, then dashed with Arianna to Randolph to accept an award from a veterans group, before meeting Ayla to celebrate Arianna’s birthday at a favorite restaurant.

A few days earlier, he said, he got a pleading call from Ayla: “ ‘Can you do my laundry? I’m out straight. I’m studying. I had practice. My clothes stink. Can you help me?’ ’’

He did. “That’s the type of dad I am,’’ he said. “I want to do everything that my parents did wrong right.’’

The family’s lifestyle is comfortable but not ostentatious. Besides his wife’s Channel 5 salary, Brown reported 2008 income of $181,838: $82,549 in legislative pay, $80,975 from his solo law practice, mostly for real estate closings, and $18,314 from the National Guard.

The couple owns a four-bedroom, Colonial-style home on a cul-de-sac in Wrentham, which values the property at $549,000; a six-room Cape-style second home they built a quarter-mile from the beach in Rye, N.H., assessed at $472,500; and a timeshare unit in Aruba worth between $10,000 and $20,000. In 2007, they bought three small, income-producing condominium units on Commonwealth Avenue in Brighton, near Boston College, at a total cost of $489,000. Ayla is co-owner of one of the units.

The family worships at New England Chapel in Franklin, a member of the Christian Reformed Church of America, a Protestant denomination, but has developed a special relationship with an order of Cistercian Catholic nuns at Mt. St. Mary’s Abbey in Wrentham.

Many of the 48 nuns are from other countries, and Brown’s first contact was in response to their request for help on an immigration matter.

“It has turned into a beautiful friendship,’’ said Sister Katie McNamara, the monastery’s nurse.

Brown raised money to buy a special golf cart to transport elderly sisters, and, with his wife, has assisted efforts to raise $5.5 million needed to replace the order’s 50-year-old candy factory with an environmentally friendly plant, complete with solar panels and a wind turbine. The order is self-sustaining through sale of its candies and fudges.

“We pray for them every day,’’ Sister Katie said of Brown and his family.

“When you have nuns praying for you three times a day and you’re not Catholic, anything that anybody can do or say about me, it’s Teflon,’’ Brown said. “It bounces right off.’’