Brown for President in 2012? No Joke, Supporters Say

Jan. 31: Republican Sen.-elect Scott Brown, center, snaps a photo with supporters in Foxborough, Mass. (AP)

He's only been a senator for a week but the drumbeat already has begun for Scott Brown to run for president in 2012.

After the Massachusetts Republican captured the seat previously held by Ted Kennedy in an upset election last month, ending the Democrats supermajority in the Senate, Brown's supporters have launched a Facebook page devoted to discussing a potential presidential bid.

They've also scooped up several "Scott Brown for President" domain names, including scottbrown2012.com, scottbrown2016.com and scottbrownforpresident.com -- a site that offers "Scott Brown for President" bumper stickers.

And a new Gallup poll ranks Brown fourth among 11 potential GOP presidential contenders who voters would like to see as the nominee.

"He is the fresh face, and he's new," Republican strategist and pollster Kellyanne Conway told Fox News. "The whole idea that you don't have enough experience, I think that went out the window with the age of the Obama presidency."

As crazy as it sounds, a Brown presidential bid in 2012 wouldn't look much different from Obama's in 2008. By then, Brown, a state senator for six years, would have been a U.S. senator for two years, with a possible memoir under his belt. A Brown spokeswoman said he will write a book about his life leading up to the special election, but it's not clear when the book would be published.

When Obama launched his improbable presidential campaign in 2007, he had been a U.S. senator for only two years following his seven-year career as a state senator in Illinois, and he had penned two books.

"Anybody who attacks Scott Brown as having a thin legislative record as a state senator in Massachusetts is going to sound foolish given the fact that's exactly what Obama had before he became president," Conway said.

But Conway said Brown has no chance to become the GOP nominee in 2012 and points to the media for creating the hype surrounding a Brown presidential bid.

Because members of the mainstream media came to the Brown party late and did not take him seriously as a Senate candidate, "they are now trying to play catch up with his legislative record and with Scott Brown the man ... and politician."

"It's also how some in the mainstream media likes to pick who they think the presidential timber vs. the presidential woodchips are and they like to say this person can make it because he has voted for some pro-choice measures," she added. "So they believe that will cause a schism within the Republican Party and the conservative movement. They'll say the Tea Party people are with Scott brown but the evangelical Christians will never support him."