Many politicos, particularly those on the left, are skeptical of Brown’s political posturing. But, regardless of oft-criticized campaign imagery, Hale said Brown’s appeal is convincing.

“The truck, the barn coat, all that stuff—those are props, but he is in a lot of ways an ordinary businessman, a lawyer, normal type guy,” said Hale, who has watched the campaign closely and predicts that Brown will win. “He’s not a member of an elite profession.”

Raised by his divorced mother, Brown’s childhood was spent moving from home to home and was marred by physical and sexual abuse. Though he rose out of his troubled family life, becoming a star basketball player at Wakefield High School in suburban Boston and receiving a scholarship to Tufts, the experience shaped many of Brown’s stances on women’s issues, which are more progressive than those of his party.

“I’ve been fighting since I was six years old to protect women’s rights,” Brown said in a debate on Oct. 10. While a student at Tufts, Brown joined the Army ROTC, an affiliation he has maintained throughout his subsequent career in law and then politics. Though he has never seen active duty, Brown was promoted to colonel earlier this year shortly after transferring to the Maryland National Guard. Brown now sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

After graduating from Tufts in 1981, Brown earned a law degree at Boston College Law School and subsequently worked as a real estate lawyer. In 1993, Brown was elected assessor of Wrentham, Mass., changing the course of his career and providing his first foray into politics.

Two years later he was elected to the town’s Board of Selectmen, and then in 1998 he made the jump to the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Brown served in the Massachusetts Senate from 2004 until he upended the state, winning the seat of longtime Senator Edward M. Kennedy ’54-’56 in the winter of 2010.

POLITICAL INDEPENDENT

Standing next to Democratic State Rep. Christopher G. Fallon in Malden, Mass. two months before Election Day, Scott Brown looked confident. Fallon, a Democrat and longtime colleague of Brown, had just become the first sitting Democrat to endorse Brown, and the senator was showing off his independent streak.

“Out of...anyone in the United States Senate right now, I’m the second-most bi-partisan senator,” Brown said.

He was citing a Congressional Quarterly study that showed he had only voted with his party 53 percent of the time during his first year in the Senate.

The figure is one of the Brown campaign’s favorite numbers to tout on the trail, and it highlights his willingness to work across the aisle—a tendency that political experts say is the product of years spent in the Democratic-dominated Massachusetts Legislature where liberals far outnumber those on the right.

“There’s not much opportunity in the Massachusetts Legislature to get anything done if you vote strictly with Republicans because there are so few of them,” Hale said.

When he was elected to the State Senate, Brown was one of six Republicans in the 40-member body.

The rising Republican proved himself willing to work with Democrats, particularly on issues affecting veterans. The latter group occupied much of Brown’s time while in the legislature as he fought for increased benefits for active soldiers and veterans. He often cites his work on a “Welcome Home” bill, which gave veterans a $1000 bonus upon their return from overseas, as one of his proudest achievements in state government.

Also of particular interest for Brown during his time on Beacon Hill was legislation toughening penalties for sexual abuse of minors and increasing funding for the Metropolitan Council For Educational Opportunity, commonly called METCO, which provides educational options for poor students in urban neighborhoods.