Apparently he was too focused on zinging Liz Warren that he forgot to pay close enough attention to the content:

In what may have been the key exchange in last night’s debate in the Massachusetts Senate race, Sen. Scott Brown (R) was asked to name his model Supreme Court justice.

“Let me see here, that’s a great question. I think Justice Scalia is a very good judge. Justice Kennedy is obviously very good. And Justice Roberts, Justice Sotomayor, I think they are qualified people who actually do a very good job.”

Putting aside the question of whether or not Brown meant to name Scalia and then backpedaled after realizing what he’d said–it does seem unlikely that when asked who your favorite justice is, you’d wind up naming half the Court–the most damaging part of this is putting Scalia in the list at all. This is a significant misstep, and even if he wanted to dogwhistle in some way, Scalia is probably the worst person to do it with because of his abrasiveness and frequent condescension to anyone who disagrees with him. The smartest move for Brown would have been to say only Chief Justice Roberts, specifically citing the mandate ruling perhaps as evidence of someone who is willing to cross ideological lines. That would have been perfect, thematically. Not sure I’d agree with that assessment of the ACA ruling, but it’s valid. Even choosing Thomas wouldn’t have been as bad–lauding the usually silent justice for his brilliance even when he disagrees might not have gone over well, but it wouldn’t have been as damaging because Thomas hardly ever says anything. Pair that with, I don’t know, some praise for Breyer, and it’s entirely respectable. Lauding Scalia is the worst possible move he could have made, since Scalia is such a controversial figure, to say the least. Trying to say you’re bipartisan and then citing someone known for relishing in antagonism toward progressives is a self-defeating tactic, to say the least, and reinforces my view of Brown, which is that he basically lucked into the seat in 2010, and that aside from working various resentments he has no real political skill.

No doubt about it that the Warren campaign will use these comments thoroughly in the next few weeks, and there are several ways they can be used. There’s a war on women angle there, since as you might have heard, Scalia is not a fan of reproductive choice. There’s a judiciary issue, since presumably Brown would vote for judges like Scalia that Massachusetts residents won’t like. He would be hard-pressed to say he wouldn’t vote for a Scalia-like nominee selected by Mitt Romney, for example. Of course, he might insist he’ll not do so, but this (along with the obviously untrue notion that he might not vote for Mitch McConnell as leader) puts him on the defensive for the time being. The “they’re all qualified people” remark just smacks of insincerity, and the quote itself tries desperately to be vague. Increasingly, Brown’s campaign is sort of like a better-conducted Romney-Ryan microcosm with a more likable candidate, but with many of the same flaws. The obsession with prepackaged zingers, for one. And you have a candidate who insists on continuing various strategies (Warren’s Cherokee heritage) that by almost any accounting haven’t worked, whose desperation is showing down the stretch as entitled assumptions meet hard realities, and whose campaign is increasingly resting on his own strained sincerity. Warren leads by about five points in most polls of the race–with this flub, that margin might well increase a few points after Warren gets the word out to women voters.

Update: Already getting fundraising emails about this. They’re on the ball, to say the least.