To hear Scott Brown tell it, Elizabeth Warren is a “radical,” and possesses a “‘radical, Occupy Wall Street’ mentality.” Why, to hear him tell it, you’d almost expect her to show up at the debates with a bullhorn, wearing tattered blue jeans and a “We Are The 99%” T-shirt, with maybe a flower or two in her hair for good measure.
However, that seems unlikely. Because Warren’s views are not “radical.” In fact, they are perfectly sensible – is it really so crazy to expect credit card companies and mortgage lenders to be truthful? Or for the wealthiest Americans to return to the tax rates they paid during the Clinton years – a position Americans think would help rather than hurt the economy by a 2-1 margin?
Of course not. And so by trying to paint Warren as a “radical,” Brown is walking into a trap. He is, in effect, arguing to the people of Massachusetts that they may think he’s a bit too conservative, but Warren is WAAAAAYYYY too liberal, so they should stick with him. That’s a mistake, because once uncommitted voters see that Warren is not, in fact, the “radical” that Brown describes, they will not only be willing to listen to her ideas, but they will realize that Brown has been saying something that is not true. That can only help Warren, and hurt Brown, because it makes him look like he thinks he can’t win in a straight-up contest of ideas.
I’ve argued previously that Warren cannot win by demonizing Brown. But I suspect the converse is true as well: Brown cannot win by demonizing (or “radicalizing”) Warren. Both candidates should be concentrating on the merits of why they would be a better Senator than the other one. In that argument, voting records are absolutely fair game (no, Scott, it is not a “negative attack” to talk about your Senate votes), but name-calling is a mistake.
Donald Green says
Certain Wall St financial firms put this economy in the soup by irresponsible loans hoping for a big pay day before it crashed. “I got mine, you’re on your own.” A detailed discussion of the lost of 12.8 TRILLION dollars by their malfeasance can be found here.
It goes over in excruciating detail what the backers of Sen Scott Brown had wrought. It is just insulting that he throws such rocks. Elizabeth Warren just points this out and for this she is called “radical.”
methuenprogressive says
Yes, he can. He’s already done it once.
David says
I don’t.
Mr. Lynne says
n/t
demeter11 says
Warren can talk about reality, e.g. votes Brown has actually cast, which are documented and so are, as people say, true facts.
Brown can only talk about what she will do, which, being in the future and being that he is not talking about himself, are not true facts. They are just scare tactics, and I hope the campaign communicates this all important difference.
Nothing negative, mind you. It’s just that the truth can hurt.
michaelhoran says
My own guess is that Occupy is saying what Warren and Obama would say if they could. I hope it is, anyway.
Not talking at all about climate change is not common sense.
Opposing the legalization of marijuana is the furthest thing from common sense imaginable.
Not wishing to curtail the expansion of US bases abroad is not common sense.
It’s POLITICAL good sense, to be sure, and I don’t begrudge a candidate adopting it for the selfsame reason. But there are a hell of lot of us out here who actually don’t believe that big money in politics is a capital idea, nor do we believe that eliminating the same is a radical idea. And if you’ve been paying any attention to Occupy, you’d realize that that’s at the very heart of it.
I’m way too busy these days explaining to Occupiers why Warren had to create some distance, much as I felt let down by her in December. But the rest of us don’t.