Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

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Tuesday, October 2, 2012

"I'm not a student in your classroom..."

Said Senator Scott Brown (R-MA), but just maybe Elizabeth Warren will teach him a thing or two.


"Brown reiterated his call for Warren, a law professor at Harvard, to release her personnel records to prove that she had received no unfair advantage in getting the job from claiming to be Native American. And he said that she had “failed that test” of 'integrity and character and trustworthiness.'

Warren reiterated that she did not use her heritage to get 'any advantage,' whether in applying to college, law school, or getting hired to any job.

She said she had learned of her heritage from her mother. And 'I consider myself as having a Native American background. That’s what I said. That’s what I am.'

'To try to turn it into something bigger is just wrong,' she said." --Boston Globe

The whole fake controversy on Professor Warren's Native American heritage is nothing more than a distraction, and polls have shown that Massachusetts voters don't care about it, no matter how many times Scott Brown's people get out there and do the tomahawk chop while whooping like crazed drunkards. 


"The New England Historic Genealogical Society provided CNN with initial research showing several members of Warren's maternal family claiming Cherokee heritage. The Native American link extends to Warren's great-great-great grandmother O.C. Sarah Smith, who is said to be described as Cherokee in an 1894 marriage license application. The genealogical society gathered that information through a 2006 family newsletter and said the original application cannot be located."  --Politicalticker

Warren's claims are based in fact.  Also she'd been told since she was a child by her mother:

"As a kid, I never asked my mom for documentation when she talked about our Native American heritage," Warren says in the spot. "What kid would? But I knew my father's family didn't like that she was part Cherokee and part Delaware, so they had to elope."



Brown's campaign's behavior on this fake controversy revealed more about Brown's character than what they had hoped would reveal about Warren's.  She looked dignified; he looked like a loud-mouthed bully.  

And speaking of loud-mouthed bullies, Senator Brown stated that his favorite Supreme Court justice is Antonin Scalia to the audience's dismay.  Professor Warren named Justice Elena Kagan as hers.   Again, this was a telling choice.



"The debate, held before a crowd of 5,700 at the university’s Tsongas Center, was co-sponsored by the Boston Herald and moderated by David Gregory, host of NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press.” The final two debates are Oct. 10 in Springfield and Oct. 30 in Boston.

The race is being closely watched nationally, as Warren and her fellow Democrats try to maintain control of the Senate, while Brown tries to help the GOP claim it, along with the US House and the White House.

The Globe reported Sunday that Warren appeared to be inching ahead in the race with a boost from Democrats energized by the presidential race, where Obama has appeared to make headway against Mitt Romney since the party’s convention.


Asked if he was distancing himself from Romney, Brown said, “Listen, he’s out campaigning all over the country. I mean, I’m here in Massachusetts. I’m running in Massachusetts.”

Brown was an obscure state senator from the town of Wrentham until he won a stunning victory against Attorney General Martha Coakley in the January 2010 special election to fill the seat left vacant by the death of long-time Democratic US Senator Edward M. Kennedy.

While he appeared to have been boosted by the Tea Party wave that would continue in the November 2010 elections, Brown has emphasized his independence as he seeks votes in the traditionally Democratic state."--Boston Globe

Senator Brown's voting record reveals he's less of an independent than what he wants people to believe. 


"LOWELL, Massachusetts — Make no mistake. Elizabeth Warren won this debate, as she and Senator Scott Brown squared off in their second debate on Monday night in the race for U.S. Senate.

Tonight's proceedings should give Warren a boost in the polls, especially after Brown committed the amazing mistake of naming Antonin Scalia as his model Supreme Court justice. The debate was moderated by David Gregory, host of Meet the Press, who asked the audience before the debate to hold their applause for the end, but to no avail.
 
Warren and Brown traded barbs for 55 minutes. Warren slammed Brown for his opposition to the DREAM Act, and for his vote against extending the Bush tax cuts for all but the top 2% of income earners, with Warren saying the senator was holding Americans hostage to secure tax breaks the wealthiest Americans. Brown, meanwhile, was able to come out guns blazing on Warren's alleged Native American heritage, as Gregory's first question of the night was posited to Warren about that issue. Brown has been unrelenting in his position that Warren's questionable claims about her ancestry speak to her a character -- a narrative the Brown campaign has been pressing. Brown also hit Warren for her work as a lawyer for Traveler's insurance, which successfully fought off a class action lawsuit by asbestos victims while they were a client of Warren's. The senator said that the lawsuit showed that Warren is not the fighter for the middle class she says she is." --policymic.com




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"For years, Massachusetts was one of the most solidly Republican states in the nation. From the founding of the Republican Party through 1928, the state voted for only a single Democrat, in 1912, when the Progressive wing of the Republican Party split off to form a short-lived third party. But as time passed and more and more Irish and other minorities moved to Boston, the Democrats' strength grew. By the late 1800s Boston was a mostly Democratic city, by the 1930s the state was Democratic in national elections, and by the 1960s it was donkeys all the way down.

Today the Republican Party is now virtually extinct in the state legislature, and the state hasn't sent a Republican to the House of Representatives since 1996. But in January 2010 the political world was shocked when an obscure state senator defeated Attorney General Martha Coakley in a special election to claim Ted Kennedy's seat by a five-point margin. Coakley won the solidly liberal western portion of the state and Boston, but it wasn't enough to offset Scott Brown's margins in the suburbs.

Brown has cut a moderate profile in Congress, similar to that of Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine. His approval ratings have remained relatively high. But he faces a game challenge from law professor and consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren, who has enthralled the Democratic base and whose fundraising has been astronomical. Brown has done most everything right for a Republican in the Bay State, but in a presidential year even that might not be enough.

--RealClearPolitics


3 comments:

Les Carpenter said...

"Said Senator Scott Brown (R-MA), but just maybe Elizabeth Warren will teach him a thing or two."

Doubt it...

gmoke said...

Yeah, I doubt he can learn anything from anybody too.

Anonymous said...

A more telling example of character is this simple example of Mr. Brown: His daughter won a basketball scholarship to Boston College - good for her that she's talented enough to win one - but as someone that makes over $300,000 a year, he can certainly afford the tuition. All he did was take a scholarship away from some kid where that was probably their only way to get into the school. A man of character and integrity would have said "no scholarship, we'll pay for it our selves." But alas, that's not Scott Brown.