HOW CAN HE BE INDEPENDENT IF HE ISN'T GOING TO TOE THEIR LINE?:

Scott Brown's 'tea party' fans feel burned by jobs vote (James Oliphant, February 23, 2010, LA Times)

Literally overnight, the fledgling Republican senator who ended Democrats' filibuster-proof majority by winning a special election in Massachusetts, has gone from being the darling of America's conservative activists to being their goat.

Monday night, Brown announced that he would join four other Republicans in voting to block a GOP filibuster and move forward with a $15-billion jobs bill designed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). Almost immediately, the political blogosphere exploded.

Cries of "letdown," "betrayal," "sellout," and "RINO" -- "Republican in name only" -- flew around Twitter. By late Tuesday afternoon, more than 4,200 people had left comments on Brown's Facebook page, most harshly negative. (And liberals engaged in some cyber-schadenfreude at the same time.)

Just five days earlier, Brown was cheered loudly by conservative activists at a gathering in Washington. He was so warmly received that some in the crowd began suggesting that he could be another Ronald Reagan and help usher in a new era of conservatism.