Massachusetts Senate Hopeful Elizabeth Warren Does Well in Democratic Debate

If She Keeps it Up, The Best 2012 Race for the Senate May Get Even Better

After the death of Sen. Ted Kennedy, voters in Massachusetts elected Republican Scott Brown to the Senate to fill out the rest of Mr. Kennedy’s term.  Mr. Brown was going to have only token opposition, and then Harvard Professor and Consumer Activist Elizabeth Warrant got into the race.



Elise Amendola/Associated Press

Elizabeth Warren, right, was joined, from

 left, by Tom Conroy, Marisa DeFranco,

Alan Khazei, Bob Massie and Herb Robinson.



Ms. Warren has never run for public office but was apparently motivated by the intense hatred of her by Republicans.  This was generated by her efforts to create and possibly head a new consumer protection agency that would help protect the public from unscrupulous practices by banks. Obviously that is a position that produces pure hatred in Republicans and their allies.

 In order to run against Mr. Brown, Ms. Warren must first win a Democratic primary next year.  The first debate was held for that primary, and reports are in that Ms. Warren did rather well.

For the most part, Ms. Warren came across as relaxed and poised, as did her opponents. Asked by a questioner what superhero she would be, Ms. Warren said Wonder Woman, adding, “It’s just such a cool outfit, and the bracelets — I mean, they were the whole thing for me.”

Early debates are mostly decorous affairs, with little news and few attacks as candidates try to get a feel for the campaign.  But Ms. Warrant did have some great lines.

When a student questioner at the forum, held at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, pointed out that Mr. Brown posed nude for Cosmopolitan magazine in the 1980s to help pay his law school tuition and asked how Ms. Warren paid for her schooling, she replied: “I kept my clothes on. I borrowed money.”

And her attack against incumbent Sen. Brown continued with this

“Forbes magazine named  ” said Warren when asked about reforming Wall Street

Scott Brown Wall Street’s favorite senator. I was thinking, ‘That’s probably not an award that I’m going to get,’

So even if she loses, Ms. Warren looks like she will have injected a needed transfusion of energy, passion, intelligence and even light humor into a Democratic party that is sorely lacking in all of that.

Ms. Warren had better be warned, however, that Republicans and Wall Street are coming after her with every dime, every misleading advertisement and every good and bad political tactic that exists.  If she was impolite to a fellow student in the 4th grade, they will track down that person and flood the airways with ads about how mean Ms. Warren is to children.  Ms. Warren will likely spend millions, but she will be outspent by a factor of three, four, five or more.