Thank you to everyone that came out today.
This is video from the second event.
PS.
Sen. Brown had around 50 people at his event in Marshfield
UPDATE [by David]: I trust bowes3 will forgive me for slightly hijacking his post: I wanted to do a compare and contrast of the two candidates at their best. Above, we see Elizabeth Warren doing what she does best, namely, talking about the issues of the day. And here’s Scott, showing his strong suit.
Please share widely!
“the campaign is not doing what it needs to be doing.”
This is exactly what the campaign needs to be doing at this point in the race.
Not glorious, or covered by the media, but it is the core of a grassroots campaign looking to find its next great regional activists to make phone calls and pound pavement in the summer/fall.
Which is what I’ve been saying all along.
…from the NYT:
http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/elizabeth-warrens-birther-moment/
Wow, here are those lies again:
No, he didn’t accuse her of using her ties to advance her career, not even her campaign made that claim, and the “hypocritical sham” refers to using her to claim to have a diverse faculty:
OK, back to this guy in the nytimes:
No, the Brown campaign does not want to dictate anyone’s belief in their identity, or tell the Cherokees who can enroll in Cherokee Nation. No, the Brown campaign doesn’t claim she could not be a native American because she is blonde, rich, or a law professor. OK, I may have seen some Dancing With Wolves jokes on the internet, but not from the Brown campaign. It is kind of a joke to claim that a distant relative who is some ethnicity makes one that ethnicity, but Brown isn’t claiming she is not Native American, just wondering why Warren presented herself as a minority in the guides, when she doesn’t really offer any of that perspective any more than any other white person could.
Actually, they don’t imply that Warren “relied upon this classification” for anything, they wanted to know her motivation, which was apparently to make friends at social gatherings, nothing more. They do argue that Harvard used her to improve their numbers, but never asserted that they hired her because of that, even in part.
Here’s another interesting story about current Native Indians:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/04/us-stolen-land-indian-tribes-un
Scott Brown is accountable for the actions of his own mean-spirited campaign.
Scott Brown has issued a steady stream of criticisms of Elizabeth Warren.
Why doesn’t Scott Brown address the issues, instead of engaging in the politics of personal destruction?
He’s been pretty defensive on this entire issue as well as being well versed in what team Brown said, did and thought. I think he IS Scott Brown!
Welcome Senator!
Small world.
I should respond seriously in case you were serious, that I have no connection to Brown or his campaign or the GOP or anything. I am actually Martha Coakley. No just kidding again. Mmm, Martha Coakley seems nice doesn’t she? There now you think I’m Alex Beam.
is amusing.
does credit to the discriminating good taste that prevails up on the Great Blue Hill, but Paddy McTammany feels not quite so sure about the political judgment of nobility and gentry.
Down in the cities of the plain, at any rate, I notice that the goodvolks over to the Herald think their fratboy won this round:
Citizen Gelzinis is not your typical _Herald_ angel, I know, but the rest of the choir seem to like the outcome well enough, even if they are not up to analyzin’ so exactly as that why it pleases.
For example,
So it really doesn’t matter that this woman claimed undeserved minority status in her profession for decades and then, when she runs for office, suddenly forgets that she has done so, and more importantly, denies that she has done so? Somehow, I think ethics does matter. I would like to hear more from Ms. DeFranco at this point.
I really do. The Brown campaign and its supporters want to trot out the time-honored “dog whistle” Republican politics in which they a.) clearly imply something unseemly about their opponent and; 2.) then claim that they didn’t actually “say” anything unseemly and; 3.) avoid any real blowback because they didn’t actually “say” anything unseemly.
The problem here is that Brown and his sock puppet manager, Barnett, don’t have the game of George Wallace, or Clif White or even Alex Castellanos. They actually really suck at the oily implication game (not to mention the clumsy stage-direction from behind the curtain encouraging the media to be stenographers) Thus, instead of oily implication that provides deniability, they instead say things like this:
“That Warren allowed Harvard to hold her up as an example of their commitment to diversity in the hiring of historically disadvantaged communities is an insult to all Americans who have suffered real discrimination and mistreatment, and Warren should apologize for participating in this hypocritical sham.” (emphasis supplied)
To me, the “in the hiring” gives up the game. Yes, they are clearly making the “oh what a phony” charge, but they are also implying that EW received something she wasn’t entitled to.
The apologists (I’m looking at you, don’t-get-cute) can protest with alternating currents of righteous indignation and great fury about the purity of Brown’s motives with respect to these statements. Alas, not unlike a septic tank that hasn’t been emptied in a while, they are full of it.
And it didn’t take any great skill to make that statement, because it is the totally normal obvious reaction by all us regular normal people who have zero respect for faux Native American Harvard Law professors and white feminist liberals who claim disadvantaged identities just to insulate themselves, if only in their own minds, from the fact of their abundant white privilege. It’s just a hypocritical sham, like that perfectly worded masterfully crafted press release said. Hey, has anyone turned up the emails that Scott Brown’s campaign sent out yet? The ones that sort of urged the press to ask if she was qualified to be a HLS professor? I’d like to see them.
Brown’s game is this : the mere fact that anyone check-boxes 1/32nd Native American for resume and hiring purposes, abetted by Harvard who check-boxes their own diversity form, rubs a lot of average folks the WRONG way.
There is nothing very subliminal about this. What sort of person (Warren) and institution (Harvard) tries to leverage a 1/32nd Indian heritage?
Can this be used politically to call into question a candidate’s veracity? The Brown campaign thinks so.
Where progressives go off the rails is thinking that voters care about her heritage. They care mostly that she — and the silent Harvard — used it to game the bogus affirmative action/diversity system.
It’s like Chris Dodd getting “Friends of Angelo” special treatment at Countrywide while at the same time bloviating about mortgage companies.
I think it is great that she is out talking to groups of people, I’m just very worried that she is not getting out and meeting with independent voters enough. I haven’t seen any polls lately, how is she polling with independents? She really needs to get out to the general electorate and speak to everyone. Scott Brown is, unfortunately.
Well, it’s always time to meet with any voter, but the ones that matter right now (ie spring) are meeting the people you want to inspire to volunteer.
The average, indy voter could give a SHIT about this election right now. They aren’t paying attention. When, in the summer and fall, they get a personal door knock from a campaign volunteer, THEN they will start giving a shit.
Til then, meeting with Dems and self-motivated indys who happen to like her and go out of their way to meet her is fine.
Also, many of the events I keep hearing about are things like diners and other public places where she just shows up, and whoever is there is there, besides the ones who might have known about it ahead of time and came especially.
Despite what Warren and Brown have said, here’s what it looks like politically to a lot of people:
Popular law professor from a low-ranked Rutgers law school (by HLS standards) uses a 1/32rd Cherokee heritage to “improve” her resume under a diversity banner and may have even used her heritage to assist in landing an HLS faculty position.
That’s it. That simple. Not racist. If Brown can make stick the image of Warren as not so middle-class, it matters. If he can’t, it won’t.
A campaign corollary is Warren looks terrible by dodging the issue then shifting her story a couple of times, And now Harvard will not disclose who their sole Native American HLS faculty member is…how bad does THAT look to likely swing voters?
After getting to Harvard, Warren then stopped listing herself as a minority in the law school directory. Mission accomplished I guess. The mission being to find enough “facebook friends” of course.
Why, why, why doesn’t the statement of Charles Fried that the American status had nothing to do with the hiring matter? This bullshit about “how it looks” to average voters is just of service of continuing to ask questions (even though Charles Fried already supplied the full and final answer).
1) Did she use this status to try to advance her career?
2) Did using this status advance her career?
The answers appear to be yes followed no.
No one has any evidence that she used Native American status as an attempt to advance her career. All of the people who hired her — UTexas, UPenn, Harvard — have come out this week and said that the subject never came up in any considerations, discussions or interviews. If it mattered at all as a subject of consideration, it likely would have come up somehow, somewhere — particularly if she were flogging it to gain some advantage. Wouldn’t she have brought it up in an interview? Are you seriously contending that everyone in the room was thinking of Native American status because of the directories, but that no one actually mentioned it? When you already have the answers, you’re supposed to stop asking the same question over and over and over again.
This story is obnoxious, knucklehead crap and there’s no there there (regardless of how much that assface Howie Carr snickers).
It’s tried-and-true GOP swift-boat birther obama-is-a-muslim lies.
Scott Brown is betting that Massachusetts voters are so ignorant and so sexist that their desire to believe these LIES will be stronger than their ability to see, hear, and read the plain truth.
She listed herself as a minority in professional directories. Either you accept her explanation that she just wanted to meet friends or the only reasonable explanation must be that she was using it for career advancement.
In a system that values diversity, it is perfectly acceptable to wonder what impact such a thing had in hiring. If everyone is to be believed, then it did not factor into Warren’s hiring. It does factor in for some other people, right? Would any of these professors defending Warren admit to using race or ethnicity in the hiring of others? If not, then why should we believe them about Warren?
You’ve hit on the central problem with this story and the way it’s being reported and discussed.
We have overwhelming evidence that no one — no one !!! — discussed Native American status in any job interviews or hiring discussions, even if only to note the presence of such status without actually asking any questions. No one mentioned it…I’ll say it one more time because it’s kind of significant: no one mentioned it.
Yet commentators still want to pretend there’s smoke there because of the directories. There is no smoke. Even if, as commentators want to allege, she used the directories to market herself (a point for which there is also no evidence), the plan was a total, remarkable, stunning, complete failure because, as per the point above, no one anywhere, at any time mentioned the information in the directories in a hiring or interviewing capacity.
There is no evidence that she used this information to market herself or to get ahead. None. None at all. The media and the Herald readers on this blog really, really, really need to stop asking the same question over and over again as if there is going to be a different answer. You know the answer…even if you don’t like it and even if it isn’t helpful to your attack poodle candidate.
You seem to be saying that apart from the evidence there isn’t any evidence.
It’s just another right-wing lie, disguised as an almost-factoid — like the birth certificate and the Swift Boat garbage.
Isn’t it somewhat remarkable that, if this directory is supposed to be such clear evidence, that no one mentioned the directories during hiring discussions or interviews?
Not Elizabeth. None of the people who interviewed or hired at Texas, Penn or Harvard. Charles Fried even said that he knew nothing of the minority status at the time of the Harvard hiring because no one mentioned it.
Look, we can’t have it both ways. If someone is flogging minority status to gain advantage, then there is a great likelihood that that person will actually mention it at the time of hiring. Similarly, if the entity doing the hiring is concerned with minority status, then some agent of the entity doing the hiring will mention the minority status.
We don’t have any of that here. Quite to the contrary, we have everyone who is a party to all of the hiring decisions saying that minority status just didn’t come up. No mentions. None. The dog didn’t bark.
Yet right wing trolls still want to put as sinister a frame on this situation as possible, and besmirch a good and talented political leader. It’s wrong and I’ll drink a mint julep cup of bleach before I sit by idly and let it happen.
Suspiciously unbelieveable.
Ms. Warren’s strength as a candidate shines in this video. Republicans operatives repeatedly emphasize that the ACA is a big bill “no one understands”. Politicians like Ms. Coakley help them along by not making the case for ACA.
Here Ms. Warren is making a very clear case for the ACA that anyone can grasp. I like that. Long overdue.
Why?
Scott Brown seems really irritated with the idea of a Native American teaching at Harvard, and I’m not sure why. He’s probably apoplectic about the idea of someone with Native American heritage “despoiling” the Senate. Nevertheless, it’s good to hear one of the senate candidates thinking about what affects people in real life.
This post is about progressive activist in the reddest part of the state out organizing our conservative counter parts. Saturday Plymouth and Scituate events hundreds of voters showed up to hear Elizabeth Warren talk about the issues. They showed up because the south shore Warren team knocked doors, made phone calls, sent email, posted on facebook and literally hit the streets inviting voters to attend the events. BUT…
YOU ARE NOT TALKING ABOUT THAT!!!
Instead you have turned this post into some kind of academic argument about a dump ass republic talking point.
BMG has always been about progressive activist talking shop and taking action.
SO….
I challenge the rest of the state to beat the Cranberry Corner of Massachusetts. (Plymouth and Scituate kicked ass!)
Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, Worcester or Springfield can you get more people than we did? Any of my friends on Merrimack Valley, North Shore or Berkshire think you can beat us? Let see what you can do.
Stop typing and start organizing!
“BMG has always been about progressive activist talking shop and taking action.” And there is sooooo much for us to do to win this US Senate seat.
All work and no play…
Just had to get that in
You should get some sleep.
Hey isn’t merrimack an “indian” name?