Check out this comedy gold email, just in from Team Brown:
Frankly, I don’t trust any poll
. . . because I know I am the underdog in this race.
Every poll that comes out, they use it to raise money from their national supporters. So will you answer my call for help? Your generous online support of $10 – $50 will get us there. Every seat in Congress is “the People’s Seat,” so don’t let the ultra-liberal special interests buy this one.
Matched up against Professor Elizabeth Warren, we know these five things:
The race will be close
She’ll have money to burn
I’m the underdog
We’re going to win because
We’ve got the best supporters…
But we must run harder and work longer to win this race because that’s what underdogs must do. Your online contribution of $10 – $50 will help us beat the odds.
Reality check here, folks. Scott Brown closed 2011 with almost $13 million in the bank – the second-highest tally of any candidate for Senate in the entire United States. And, as of that time, Brown had better than a 2-1 advantage over Elizabeth Warren in terms of cash-on-hand (for the record, Warren’s total ranked 10th in the country among Senate candidates – not bad). Combine that with the obvious fact that he’s the incumbent, and it’s awfully hard to see him as the “underdog” – no matter how many times he repeats that word in his fundraising emails (three, in this case).
I do love the extent to which Brown’s consultants are enamored of the “Professor” moniker. They seem absolutely certain that every time they remind voters that Warren is, well, smart, they flip a voter into the Brown column. I don’t believe it.
The email says:
Matched up against Professor Elizabeth Warren, we know these five things:
The race will be close
She’ll have money to burn
I’m the underdog
We’re going to win because
We’ve got the best supporters
This is five lines, but only four statements because the last two lines form a single complete sentence.
Maybe punctuation is considered elitist by Brown’s consultants. Or maybe the thing is some sort of odd-form haiku.
Have some pity….”the school of hard knocks,” is where real men learn to be men and it is tough! Or was that Tufts?
Consider these two sentences:
and
Punctuation saves lives… 😉
Copy and paste compounds the spelling error!
so, yes, Scott Brown is the underdog. It’s called Math.
Like I said at RMG, if you accept the Suffolk poll then you necessarily have to accept that Scott is no longer the underdog. Also, an incumbent underdog? C’mon.
But in a overly Democratic state, he does seem kind of underdoggy. And how long has it been since he’s been at 50% in the polls? Just because he’s a head in one poll doesn’t make him a frontrunner.
I suppose Bill Weld was the “underdog” against Mark Roosevelt in 1994?
Wow. Just wow.
How much has Lizzy raised? $8 million? Yeah. she’s totally like Mark Roosevelt!
my retort is to demonstrate – beyond a shadow of a doubt, I might add – that just quoting party registration numbers does not determine who is the “underdog” in a race.
You can say “wow” all you want. You’re still wrong. Sorry, big fella.
…for each member of the Democratic and Republican parties combined – that too is called math. While it makes the Democrat’s job a little easier, you can’t deny that unenrolled voters outnumber both parties here in MA.
…right down the middle (oh, how I wish that where true)
That’s what? 2-1 Democratic?
If Brown really wants to claim the position of weakness when he ought to be considered as a frontrunner with name rec (the typical position of an incumbent if they have been doing what their constituents want) then that’s his biz…seems to me though that in this case it’s an admission of his vulnerability.
at me funny!
I really think Scott Brown thinks he’s the underdog. I’m reminded of Brown being overheard in his office last year whining/wondering out loud how our Elizabeth could catch up to him so quickly. He’s not in Coakley’s league, but I think Brown has solid sense of entitlement and a tenuous grip on how he reached political success.
I would say he can reasonably claim that he’s the underdog.
The registration advantage is one factor, and the fact that it’s a presidential year will boost turnout, so that should in theory emphasize the registration advantage.
I think she has to campaign like an underdog, but if you asked me who is the underdog, I’d probably say him.
PS. I believe the Suffolk poll. But he has to hold that support, without her gaining, and I think he won’t and she will.
So, Scott Brown is now ahead in the polls.
And, Scott Brown is way ahead with money.
And, Democrats are not taking Scott Brown seriously.
Haven’t we seen this before?
worry about his psychological stability? His childhood had trauma and struggles for which I have empathy. He lives and has lived a life of upper middle class privilege for over half of his life. He’s still crying victim, but ready to cut the legs off major public policy intended to help people. His mind seems like a scary neighborhood with some bizarre cul de sacs, one ways and other dead ends projecting the image of white picket fences.
… for comment of the day.
the psychology of his entire party, for which this kind of whiny victimism seems to be a regular feature.
We will hear the title Prof. Warren because the Republicans hope to link Elizabeth indirectly to the outrageous tuition costs parents fork over every August and January, or the large student loans their kids are in debt to. Without saying it, people like her with their large salaries are why tuition costs are so high. Fair or unfair, it is a good, and potentially effective strategy.
They call her “professor” because they want to link her to elitism in the voter’s minds. Remember, the Republican party is anti-intellectual. (Hell, Santorum labeled academia as having fallen to Satan for heaven’s sake!) They think if they make you think Warren is all hoity-toity you won’t relate to her and therefore you won’t vote for her.
A stupid strategy in MA, where we have more universities and colleges per capita than anywhere else in the union…
Welcome to BMG, Dan. The first comment is sometimes the hardest.
It doesn’t sound like you’ve done much research into college costs. Over the past three decades, tuition rates have grown at two to three times the increases in faculty compensation over the same period. Administrative costs and overhead are skyrocketing. The economic collapse has hurt both alumni giving and the return on endowments. Public and private research monies are shrinking. Meanwhile, the job prospects for graduating seniors are bleak with no end in sight. Students graduate with large debt burdens and face decades of debt service. While the economic factors driving up the cost of college are complex, faculty compensation is most emphatically not the reason why. Elizabeth Warren is leading the charge to redress the corporate greed that drives pictures like this.
The moniker of “Professor Warren” is more a homage to the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Howie Carr than any substantive commentary, and panders to the same anti-intellectual mouth-breathing arm-dragging crowd.
That’s what I call her too. Lawyers don’t usually get called Doctor even though that’s what the D in a J.D. degree stands for. Since she is no longer married to the man who gave her the last name she currently uses (and is married to someone else) I’m not sure whether Ms. or Mrs is appropriate. That leaves us with Professor for now, but hopefully her title will be Senator by this time next year.
The reason “Ms.” was introduced was to eliminate any dependence on marital status. The moniker “Ms. Warren” is intended to be analogous to “Mr. Brown”, with the explicit intent of conveying nothing about the marital status of the subject.
It is too bad that our culture has made so little progress in gender roles in the decades since “Ms.” made its way into the lexicon. It is supremely ironic that writers in 2012 wonder about “Ms.” vs “Mrs.” — the entire point of replacing “Miss” with “Ms.” was to do away with that sexist convention. Sexist habits die hard, it seems.
It seems to me that “Ms. Warren” or “Elizabeth Warren” works just fine. I join Christopher in hoping that a year from now we’ll be referring to her as “Senator Elizabeth Warren”.
… is if they electorate come to understand Warren as someone who understands them. The fact that she does means that they can’t rely on the facts to do it for them – they have to spin. To the extent that they can define her as an academic elitist, they can define her as someone that you can’t identify with and who can’t identify with you.
Personally I think the poll indicates that most people haven’t actually been introduced to Warren.
and his birthday is stupid as well.
Prediction:
Brown will not say “Warren” without saying Professor first from now until November.
It’s not just about the elitism, BTW. People vote for people they view as a little better than themselves (as in, I couldn’t do the job, but someone a little better than me could). Brown plays that perfectly, Warren does not (oh I came from humble roots, but I’m a superachiever so now I’ve made it).
“Professor” puts her in a spot that many people cannot relate to. I don’t see it as a negative with college folks (like tenured faculty)-they’re not voting for Brown anyway.
Perhaps Scott Brown will call her “Professor Warren” from now until he loses in November. In doing so, he’s calling the “pointy-headed intellectuals” play from George Wallace’s playbook. Nah, there’s no racism or appeal to bigotry in today’s GOP.
Or perhaps he’s aiming at “effete intellectual snobs”, a favorite of Spiro Agnew. Yes, the same GOP Vice President who resigned in disgrace for tax evasion and bribery. Yet another iconic GOP public servant.
Yes, Scott Brown is certainly following some venerable political traditions.
Young Goodman Brown based on the Hawthorne story. They have a lot in common. Both have incredibly common names. Both get lost in a world they don’t quite understand. Both never know what hits them.
Alas, he’s not young. I don’t really care for him but he’s not a “bad man.”