Former Massachusetts Senator Announces New Hampshire Run

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. - From the Mount Cube Sugar Farm in Orford to the Moose Muck Coffee House in Colebrook, Scott Brown has been testing his message across New Hampshire and, to the surprise of almost no one, has decided that it works.

And so on Thursday night, after a yearlong buildup made even longer by a few minutes of amiable chitchat, in which he noted that both of his daughters are getting married this summer, Mr. Brown, once a Republican senator from Massachusetts, formally declared his candidacy for his old job, just from a different state.

'Starting today, I am a candidate for the United States Senate for the state of New Hampshire,' he told a crowd of 200 people at a hotel ballroom here.

'I am running to be a true independent voice for the people of New Hampshire,' he said. It was the same tack he took in Massachusetts in 2012, when he lost his seat to Elizabeth Warren, but New Hampshire, a deep purple state, might be more receptive.

Representing more than one state in the Senate is a feat that no one has achieved in more than a century, but Mr. Brown is attempting it, in large part because national Republicans think he can knock off the incumbent Democrat, Senator Jeanne Shaheen, and help the Republicans take control of the Senate.

'We're here because we can count to 51,' John H. Sununu, the state's former governor, said in introducing Mr. Brown. 'Fifty-one Republican senators. That's what it's all about in 2014.'

Both sides have already poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into television advertising here, and the race is likely to become one of the marquee battles this year.

Now that he is no longer in the Senate, Mr. Brown is running on a solid anti-Washington platform.

'We have a whole establishment in Washington, and you all know it, they spend too much, they tax too much, and they borrow too much,' he said. 'And for the sake of working people who just want a chance to live their lives and get ahead, I am running to challenge that establishment - to get the federal government off our backs.'

Exhibit A, for him, is the Affordable Health Care Act, for which Ms. Shaheen voted and has supported.

'Is America being served by this out-of-step, out-of-touch Obama-Shaheen agenda?' he asked at one point. 'Whenever I see a big-government mind-set in any piece of legislation,' he said, 'I will vote against it.'

In another reprise from his initial 2010 Senate race in Massachusetts, he said of the Obama health care law: 'Let me be the one to stop it for you.'

His announcement was noteworthy in part because it was live and in person. Many candidates these days announce their aspirations by video, assuring a controlled environment. Mr. Brown's event was open to the public, and, as suits the state's professional, look-me-in-the-eye voters, was devoid of confetti and hyped excitement. When a few observers briefly chanted 'We want Scott!' he expressed surprise. 'Gee,' he said, 'that was great.'

It drew people like John Temers, 50, a property manager from Manchester. Asked why he had come, Mr. Temers said, 'Obamacare.'

Mr. Sununu said in his introduction that Ms. Shaheen was a rubber stamp for President Obama.

'She represents the ideology and policies of the radical left wing of the Democratic Party,' he said. 'She votes with Elizabeth Warren.' And in an unexpected twist, he added of Ms. Shaheen: 'She is the third senator from Massachusetts,' It was perhaps an attempt to pre-empt Democrats who might say the same thing about Mr. Brown.

Mr. Brown made his announcement in this port city, not far from where he was born 54 years ago, when his father was an airman at Pease Air Force Base and his mother a waitress in Hampton Beach. But he spent most of his life in Massachusetts, where he was a state senator and then pulled a political upset by winning the Senate seat held for almost half a century by Edward M. Kennedy, who died in 2009.

Before Mr. Brown can run against Ms. Shaheen in November, he must win the Republican primary in September. He faces three other candidates, but he is by far the best known.

If he were to win in November, Mr. Brown would join an exclusive club of two - senators to represent more than one state. Both were elected in the 19th century: Waitman T. Willey went to the Senate from Virginia, and until 1871 from West Virginia; James Shields represented Illinois, Minnesota and until 1879, Missouri.

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