GOP prods a hesitant Scott Brown to run for Senate

By Frank Phillips and Michael Levenson

With time running short, Washington Republicans have begun a “full court press’’ to persuade an increasingly reluctant Scott Brown to run in the special election to replace John F. Kerry, say two leading Massachusetts GOP figures.

The eleventh-hour effort, coordinated by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, comes as those familiar with Brown’s deliberations are becoming convinced that he will not run and instead will look for a job in the private sector.

The committee has lined up some of Brown’s former Senate colleagues to mount the campaign to persuade him to run. They are telling Brown he is the party’s best and probably only hope to win the June 25 election in a state that traditionally sends Democrats to Washington, said those GOP figures, who ­declined to comment on the record. Brown will probably disclose his decision in the next few days.

As the pressure mounts on Brown, a proudly defiant Stephen F. Lynch launched his Senate campaign Thursday by casting himself as a blue-collar political outsider and his rival for the Democratic nomination, Edward J. Markey, as an out-of-touch creature of Washington.

-snip-

read more:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/01/31/congressman-lynch-launches-campaign-for-senate-seat/0jIlwDE5YtSJirYrmCec7N/story.html