The office of Scott Brown acknowledged that the words were lifted. Scott Brown in plagiarism flap

Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) is being accused of plagiarizing from the website of former Sen. Elizabeth Dole.

A part of Brown’s welcome message on the student resources page of the senator’s official website was taken verbatim from the welcome message on Dole’s website, language that was used in the former North Carolina senator’s campaign kickoff in 2002, The Boston Globe first reported.


“I was raised to believe that there are no limits to individual achievement and no excuses to justify indifference,” read the message to students on his website. “From an early age, I was taught that success is measured not in material accumulations, but in service to others. I was encouraged to join causes larger than myself, to pursue positive change through a sense of mission, and to stand up for what I believe.”

The rest of “A Message From Scott” (the page on Dole’s site was similarly headlined “A Message from Elizabeth”) also replicates Dole’s message verbatim, as shown by these screengrabs from Brown’s website and Dole’s site, which were provided to POLITICO by a Democratic source.

The welcome message was removed from Brown’s website some time Monday, the Globe reported.

Another page on Brown’s website also seems to have language lifted from Dole’s as well, including the introduction message on the “Intern Program” Web page.

Brown writes, “Sen. Brown has long encouraged young people to become involved in the political process. As a public servant, he strongly believes that public service is a noble thing to do, and a wonderful way to give back.”

A screengrab of Dole’s intern program page shows verbatim language used to introduce the program with a few variances — for example, Dole’s page referred to the former senator as “a public servant for over 35 years.”

Brown’s spokesman John Donnelly told POLITICO on Thursday morning that he couldn’t comment on the language used on the senator’s intern page for the time being.

Dole’s former chief of staff Brian Nick told POLITICO on Thursday that Dole’s office was “certainly aware that Sen. Brown’s office used our site as a template during the transition period.”

“Obviously, we were made aware by his staff that there was an error by an intern or staff member who was working on it at the time. … Obviously, it’s much ado about nothing,” Nick said.

He added that it’s “very common” for offices of lawmakers to “share templates” for “a lot of generic language.”

When asked whether he considered language like “I was raised to believe that there are no limits to individual achievement and no excuses to justify indifference” generic, Nick maintained that the incident was the result of “human error.”

“It’s human error by someone who was using templates content and inadvertently grabbed some non-template content,” he said. “Democrats are doing what they can with this for obvious reasons, but, pretty silly stuff.”

Brown’s office acknowledged that the words in the welcome message were lifted from Dole’s website and claimed that it was the result of a technical error caused by “a staff level oversight.”

“Sen. Dole’s website served as one of the models for Sen. Brown’s website when he first took office. During construction of the site, the content on this particular page was inadvertently transferred without being rewritten,” Donnelly told the Globe. “It was a staff level oversight which we regret and is being corrected.”

The Globe said it was alerted of the replication of language by a liberal group called American Bridge 21st Century.

“This kind of plagiarism makes me wonder how many things about Scott Brown are really genuine,” the group’s president Rodell Mollineau said. “The fact that he can’t come up with a personal values statement of his own, that he has to steal someone else’s, I think is very instructive of what kind of politician he is.”

This is the second time in two weeks that Brown is finding himself in a PR flop. Last week, the Republican landed in hot water when he cracked a joke about Elizabeth Warren’s appearance during a radio interview.

Warren spokesman Kyle Sullivan said Warren’s campaign had no comment on the plagiarism accusation.