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Political Circuit: This time, he's keeping it clean

E-mail|Link|Comments () October 9, 2009 01:48 PM

State Senator Scott Brown may be known, in some quarters, for his pretty-boy looks. But he’s not exactly known for having a choir-boy vocabulary.

In 2007, when talking to a group of high school sophomores at King Philip Regional High School in his home town of Wrentham, he reportedly used the F-word twice.

Brown drew rebukes from school officials but defended his use of profanity, saying he was simply repeating hateful statements that had been posted on Facebook about him and his family.

"I was merely reading the things that they had written about me," Brown told the Globe at the time. "What's the issue, exactly? I don't quite know what the big deal is."

Perhaps he learned a lesson.

It did not go unnoticed this week when Brown, now a Republican candidate for US Senate, posted the following warning on one of his campaign's social networking sites: “Don't Use Obscenities: If you can't articulate your thoughts without swearing, you will be tossed from the Brown Brigade.”

-- MATT VISER

Rooting for the other guys?

Addressing nearly 1,000 supporters Wednesday night at the Fairmont Copley Plaza, Attorney General Martha Coakley sought to rally the crowd with a line about making the Senate more representative of the populace -- namely, by becoming the first Massachusetts woman elected to the august body.

"This country was based upon building a representative democracy where all voices are heard, and our work toward this goal continues with this race," she said, to cheers.

"Seventeen in the Senate would be good," Coakley added, to even louder applause.

Trouble is, there are already 17 women serving in the Senate -- she would be its 18th (and the 39th in history). So, either her campaign's math was a little off, or Coakley is actually rooting for one of her opponents, all of whom are men.

If you're keeping score at home, the women serving in the Senate now are Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer of California, Patty Murray and Maria E. Cantwell of Washington, Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Deborah Stabenow of Michigan, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Kay R. Hagan of North Carolina), and Kirsten E. Gillibrand of New York.

-- ERIC MOSKOWITZ

Hooping it up

Just in case you didn't already know, Steve Pagliuca wants you to know he likes basketball. A lot.

The Celtics co-owner released his third television commercial on Wednesday, a 60-second spot with no fewer than five images related to basketball (and two others of runners).

Twenty seconds into the ad, there’s Bob Cousy, in black and white, passing the ball inbounds. There are images of Pagliuca coaching a game from the sidelines, and then photos of Paul Pierce hoisting the MVP trophy and Pagliuca joining the team on center court. The montage ends with Pagliuca, known around the court as Pags, accepting a hug from Doc Rivers, with the head coach wrapping his left hand around the Senate candidate’s head.

“I don’t know,” Rivers told WEEI on Tuesday when asked if he would have to campaign for Pagliuca. “I’m happy he’s doing it. I think he’s doing it for the right reason. Unfortunately for Pags, I don’t know if he has a lot of registered voters with the Celtics players. A lot of them live in different places.”

His ad doesn’t mention it, but Pagliuca also played on the freshman basketball team at Duke University, and in his senior year he won a university-wide one-on-one tournament. More recently, his son Joseph was a walk-on player at Duke.

-- MATT VISER

Tweet of the Week:

A tweet from David Guarino (@davidguarino), a one-time political reporter for the Boston Herald and former aide to Democratic politicos, offering some unsolicited advice to Senate candidate Alan Khazei (@alankhazei) in the wake of his endorsement by Max Kennedy: "I covered Max's 01 campaign for Congress. One word for Alan: Careful."