The numbers are on her side:
Wow, this is going to be good: Occupy Wall Street is now officially an issue in what may be the highest-profile and most polarizing Senate race in the country.
National Republicans are now attacking Elizabeth Warren for embracing the protests, seeking to make a liability out of the fact that Warren, a longtime critic of Wall Street excess, has now aligned herself with the movement’s intellectual underpinnings. What this means: The conservative effort to turn blue collar whites and independents against the protesters and their broader populist message — exploiting a traditional cultural fault line in our politics — will now unfold in the context of a high profile political campaign.
Warren was asked by the Daily Beast for a comment on the protests. She said: “I created much of the intellectual foundation for what they do. I support what they do.”
Now the NRSC has opened fire on Warren for the comments, blasting out an email containing links to stories about protesters in Massachusetts battling with cops. Said NRSC spokesman Brian Walsh: “Warren’s decision to not only embrace, but take credit for this movement is notable considering the Boston Police Department was recently forced to arrest at least 141 of her Occupy acolytes in Boston the other day after they threatened to tie up traffic downtown and refused to abide by their protest permit limits.”
I can’t wait for this woman to be a Senator.
cathyx
With the current bought and paid for senate that exists today, I doubt any of them will join her. Too bad.
Linda Featheringill
That whole story is just delicious. Love it!
This is more advertisement for OWS. Also, Elizabeth can explain anything and do it well, so if there is any confusion among the populace, she can address that.
She might also serve as a source of hope to victims of the current system who have given up on political means of addressing their complaints and are considering more drastic means.
Go, Elizabeth, go!
Turgidson
I hope the Silent Majority the GOP is once more pinning its hopes on turning to them for “law and order” has its head of its ass this time. There have been some positive signs, but we’ll see.
And yes, I will really enjoy seeing Elizabeth Warren kick the empty suit playing a Senator to the curb. If only she could be my senator. Boxer’s OK, but I’m really like to upgrade DiFi to a real Democrat.
MikeBoyScout
We can’t wait either.
How about we raise a few more dollars here on BJ for the #OWS godmother?
Rafer Janders
“Warren’s decision to not only embrace, but take credit for this movement is notable considering the Boston Police Department was recently forced to arrest at least 141 of her Occupy acolytes in Boston the other day after they threatened to tie up traffic downtown and refused to abide by their protest permit limits.”
Nothing says freedom and liberty like protest permit limits.
Corner Stone
@Rafer Janders:
What do you mean? Don’t you think it would send a more powerful message if protestors left every evening and then lined up to quietly file back in the next morning?
geg6
@Turgidson:
Oh, please. You live in paradise compared to those of us who have Bob Casey, Jr. as their equivalent to Barbara Boxer (I’d take her, please) and Pat Toomey as Diane Feinstein (I’d take her, too, please).
I can’t tell you how awesome it would be to touch the screen on the name “Warren.”
Steve
Oh no! You don’t want to identify with the traffic-tier-uppers, that’s political death for sure! Those sound like some hardcore rabble-rousers, like the Baader-Meinhof gang reborn.
John M. Burt
The real “bet” here is that Warren is betting she can align herself with OWS and not be rejected by them.
Other Democrats have tried it and been told to go find their own coattails. Warren has more in common with them, though, so it might work.
Turgidson
@geg6:
Oh I know that. But I also live in a state where the electorate won’t hestitate to elect someone considerably more liberal than DiFi if she’d ever just go away.
jibeaux
Can you imagine what it would be like if there was traffic tied up in downtown Boston?!? And refusing to abide by their protest permit limits on top of that! What horrors are next, coming into homes and removing the marshmallows from the Lucky Charms?
Judas Escargot
Told ya. (Then again, “GOP goes after populist Senate candidate” doesn’t require Karnak-level powers of prediction).
I wish I could stomach my local market’s talk radio, just to hear whatever coordinated anti-Warren message they start pushing soon.
different-church-lady
@jibeaux:
How the heck are we going to tell the difference?
Comrade Javamanphil
@jibeaux:
FTW.
Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac
My wife saw Mr. Brown’s first attack ad against Warren a few weeks back, and said “this negative ad just made me wish I could vote for her even more”.
Isn’t it amazing how fast you can get the “tea party republicans” to forget about populist fiscial issues (bank bailouts are evil! corporate greed!) once a few hippies show up?
shortstop
We’re in the wayback machine and those Nixon law-and-order Republicans aren’t going to stand for any of this dangerous campus radicalism. If things get out of hands and shots are fired into the crowd, will the GOP candidates assure us that the dead protesters were “bums”?
CambridgeChuck
Warren is gutsy, smart, and straight-shooting. I’m going to her Framingham volunteer organizational meeting tonight. If you haven’t contributed to her campaign, now would be a good time to do so!
Mark
Can’t the Democrats in Calif. primary Feinstein now that her treasurer made of with millions?
Imo, now would be the time to get rid of her and her war-profiteering husband.
Cat Lady
Shorter Republicans: It’s always 1968.
Guess what though – Richard Nixon’s not coming through that door, and Scott Brown is no Richard Nixon. Elizabeth Warren is no Martha Coakley, and Massachusetts is not neo-confederate. I like her chances.
Martin
@Mark: Honestly, it’s not worth it. DiFi is a reliable vote even if she’s not a firebrand, and the risk of winding up with one of our resident free-market billionaires is too high.
Spaghetti Lee
@shortstop:
No doubt. They’re still doing that about the actual Kent State victims after all.
geg6
@Turgidson:
Well, considering how much she lost to the campaign grifter she hired, you may get your wish.
El Cid
They made a national panic level issue of whether or not Barack Obama pal’d around with terrists since the mayor of Chicago appointed he and Bill Ayers to an education reform commission.
If they can shit out bricks like that, connecting Elizabeth Warren to proto- or fully Communist radicalism is as easy as breathing.
RossinDetroit
The GOP has no choice but to side with our Galtian Overlords against OWS. But they’re finding themselves between a very large rock and a very hard place. It’s fun watching them squirm.
Joel
@Corner Stone: That would actually be pretty damn powerful, but damn nigh impossible (I’m thinking Malcolm X-style spontaneous protest).
jibeaux
@different-church-lady:
And they’re making it cold! They’re making it get dark earlier! They’re making Christmas displays appear in stores! And I’ve heard that soon, they will start demanding candy door to door and leaving toilet paper in your trees! The bastards will stop at nothing!
Bill H.
Well, I favor her being a Senator, too, not that I think one Senator out of one hundred is going to have much impact. Still one piece at a time, and a journey of a thousand miles, etc.
Still, the tenor of that quote is that we can’t wait for her to be a senator because the opposition is saying nasty things about her. That’s a pretty crappy reason to cheer for her election. It would be more heartening if we were cheering for her election because she was promising to do good things rather than because the opposition hates her. I mean, she is making such promises, of course, but let’s cite them as reason for support, rather than that Republicans hate her.
And “primary Dianne Feinstein” in California? Dream on. The Republicans might nominate someone who can beat her, but she OWNS the Democratic Party machinery. There is no way in hell a primary challenge will be allowed.
geg6
@Spaghetti Lee:
Yup, this DFH surely deserved it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Knox_Schroeder
Suffern ACE
@jibeaux:
Also known as Wednesday.
Rafer Janders
@Corner Stone:
It reminds me of the famous Boston Massacre that we all learned about as schoolchildren, when the British Army was forced to shoot four demonstrators in Boston after they threatened to tie up cart traffic downtown and refused to abide by their protest permit limits….
Linda Featheringill
@El Cid: #22
Proto-Communist radicalism:
Maybe. Speaking as an avowed soshullist, I must agree that understanding the 99% versus 1% inequality is the basis of such a position. So the movement may be proto-something-or-other. It really depends on what the people of the US decide to do about this inequality.
FWIW, I don’t think the perfect solution to our current problems has been voiced yet and am open to new constructs, operating under any name.
Rafer Janders
@Corner Stone:
I know it shouldn’t anymore, but it still astounds me that the very same people who rally ’round “Don’t Tread On Me” Gadsen flags while shouting “Freedom!” are the same ones who, in their very next breath, demand that you obey the police! Obey! And for god’s sake, don’t violate your protest permit limits!
As always, Dr. Johnson said it best, when he wondered of Americans “how is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?”
shortstop
@Bill H.: I don’t think Warren’s superiority on policy is much in question around here, do you? We’ve discussed it at length and will continue to do so. Our indulging in a little nose-thumbing at GOP discomfort doesn’t mean we’re motivated for the wrong reasons.
Loneoak
I’d like to see her beat the shit out of Ben Nelson once she gets to the Senate.
Martin
@El Cid:
True, but it didn’t work with voters. I don’t think this will either.
shortstop
@Loneoak: Now you’re talking.
Kola Noscopy
Just a reminder to all the Kola haters here: Kola is now officially re-registered to vote here in Boston, an act specifically taken to enable me to vote for Elizabeth Warren. I have no idea if my vote will actually be tabulated as cast, but that’s another kettle of fish…
However, I remain apprehensive that once in Washington, Warren will receive a visit from Obama and the other Establishment Dem boys during which they will lay out in no uncertain terms how things really go down in D.C., and what the price will be should she remain on her populist path.
But either way, her rhetoric is refreshing in the short term, if nothing else.
Tom Q
The GOP press release reminds me a bit of the way, in early ’06, Karl Rove warned Democrats they better not run against the (very unpopular) Iraq War. As Jonathan Alter said at the time, “The only danger for Democrats is taking Karl Rove seriously on that”. (Of course, Mark Halperin ate it up)
Democrats embracing populism vs. the Galts is a no-brainer for 2012. Even Karl Rove is (quietly) telling people this. Republicans only make statements like this in a hope of psyching Dems out of taking the obvious path.
Sadly, some Dems (Nelson/Landrieu etc.) will buy this bologna. But Warren is no fool.
policomic
Because I am an incurable pessimist, I can’t help but worry about that “I created…” line being turned into something with which to beat Warren over the head, a la Gore’s “invention of the Internet.” Don’t get me wrong: I think Warren’s statement is justified, and I’m not suggesting she shouldn’t have said it. But it could easily become a rallying cry around which our ever-eager circular firing squad volunteers could gather (e.g., “This movement will not be co-opted by the Republi-Dem duopoly! We don’t need this insider to tell us how to think!” etc.).
Davis X. Machina
@El Cid:
GLENDOWER: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
HOTSPUR: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come when you do call for them?
What happens if they do it, and nothing happens?
Svensker
Conservatives are calling the protestors “McGovernites”? I was there, at the time, and I barely remember what a McGovernite is. How old are these people?
Villago Delenda Est
Warren is going to rip Centerfold boy to shreds.
Pass the popcorn, I’m going to enjoy this.
Feudalism Now!
They are trying to use OWS against Warren and she is running for Teddy Kennedy’s old seat? BWA ha haha ha! I am sure that is an effective use of RSC funds. Go for it boys, you are on the right track!
Davis X. Machina
@policomic: I fear your scenario — left-cannibalism — far more than ordinary, garden-variety Red-baiting.
daveX99
@John M. Burt:
Hmmm. I like Warren a lot, but it’s a little nervy to take credit for having “created much of the intellectual foundation for what they do.” I wish she’d just left it at “I support them”, and explained why. She might even be right, but it sounds a bit off-putting.
I’ve turned into a concern-troll, sorry.
jayjaybear
@Kola Noscopy: Warren doesn’t have a history of knuckling under, so I’m optimistic that no amount of visits from the Establishment Dems would sway her from this. It’s been her life’s work, basically.
jayjaybear
@Svensker: Remember what someone upthread posted: “To conservatives, it’s always 1968.”
Villago Delenda Est
@daveX99:
I see your point, but Warren was talking about this shit YEARS ago, and was indeed helping to lay the intellectual foundations for OWS. I’m sure the vermin of the Village will turn that statement into an “Al Gore says he invented the Internet!” moment.
David
I’m glad she aligned herself with OWS, but as a politician, she’s taking a serious risk. If any highly-publicized ugly blowups happen at one of the occupy sites between now and the election, the GOP and the press are gonna go all in to tie it around her neck.
wrb
@Svensker:
Conservatives are calling the protestors “McGovernites”?
Well they were kind of like the Jimmy Carter radicals but even more scary.
They had this edgy midwestern thing going- bake sales and shit.
DFH no.6
I’m not sure about this.
I don’t live in MA and don’t know how actually liberal the electorate in that state is (they did elect Scott Brown), but the conservadems I know and have talked to about OWS (here in AZ, and in my old home state of OH) aren’t particularly positive about the whole Occupy phenomenon.
That’s just my own tiny and anecdotal “evidence”, but I’d bet a significantly large percentage (not necessarily majority) of conservadems and actual swing independent voters (mostly a moderately conservative group) don’t have an overall sunny opinion of OWS.
Not because they have any love for Wall Street or the banksters, but because they are uncomfortable (at least) with the whole “hippie/leftist/troublemaker” aspect of OWS (exaggerated as that may be).
Several have also told me that they were not thrilled with some of the multifarious OWS messages, either, such as student loan forgiveness and mortgage cramdowns (some sarcasm from a conservadem employee who is not in trouble on his mortgage: “Hey, maybe someone should give me a reduction in my mortgage payment and what I owe on my credit cards, if student loans can be forgiven”).
There’s just something about a conservative mindset (even a “moderate” one) that’s crabs in a bucket.
Liberals in MA are going to support Warren anyway. Just not sure how her embrace of OWS (an honest and in-character embrace, of course) plays out with the non-liberals she will need to get elected. Might actually hurt (I hope not).
Violet
Love me some Elizabeth Warren.
jayjaybear
Since the GOP has jumped once again back in time to 1968, I wonder how much of a part “lawnorder” is going to play next November? If they can hang the OWS movement with the “hippie” epithet (or, even better for them, the dangerous malcontents epithet), I wonder if it will work now like it did then?
shortstop
@Kola Noscopy:
How worthy of notice and applause. Who are you again?
@Svensker: Don’t you wonder what the young Republicans make of all this? Maybe they’re just excited to be the among the few in their party who can run around diaperless or get it up without medication.
Mino
Uh, it’s not Republican mayors (Bloomburg??) who are turning the cops loose on OWSvarious. Chicago, Boston, Oakland, etc. etc.
I’m worried it’s Democrats jumping backwards.
Spaghetti Lee
For conservatives, it may always be 1968, but does anyone else care about re-fighting 50-year-old battles? I hope not, but I guess we’ll find out.
gnomedad
@Svensker:
They have Magic 8-Balls loaded with synonyms for “dirty fucking hippie”. That one just came up this time.
jayjaybear
@shortstop: As we discovered a year or two ago, the “young” in “Young Republican” does not mean what it means to normal people.
Spaghetti Lee
@DFH no.6:
How do you respond to them, if at all?
shortstop
@jayjaybear: Right, that perimenopausal woman on Facebook. Still, my job occasionally brings me into contact with college Republican groups (small though they are — not much meat on ’em, but what’s there is cherce, as Spencer Tracy would say). I must remember to ask some of them if they feel personally engaged by these metaphors. From the looks of these boys (yes, almost all XY), some of them are the dorks employing the analogies, but I guess I shouldn’t talk, since most of this stuff is before my time as well.
singfoom
My favorite part of this is the idea that “Not Abiding by protest permits” is a greater crime than fleecing the entire country through loan origination fraud and selling purposely designed faulty financial products.
Oh the humanity of people going out in the streets.
Judas Escargot
@policomic:
I had this exact same thought. But the lady has actually written & published multiple books on the subject.
It’s as if Gore had had a few books on tcp/ip or networking theory on his resume.
catclub
@Loneoak: “I’d like to see her beat the shit out of Ben Nelson once she gets to the Senate”
with a copperheaded cane?
geg6
@DFH no.6:
You do realize that there are already several types of student loan forgiveness programs out there, aren’t you? Loan forgiveness programs have been around almost as long as student loans have been. It’s no big deal to expand or build on the ones that already exist. In addition, what many in OWS who are bitching about student loans are actually bitching about is that student loans never go away, ever, not even if you declare bankruptcy. Not even private ones. Personally (and as a student aid officer, I have some knowledge on this), I’d just be happy if they allowed private student loans to be allowed in bankruptcy cases, if nothing else. It’s generally the private loans that cause most of the problems for these students since, as an undergrad, you can only borrow up to $31,000 from the federal loan program anyway. If no one had any more than $31,000 to worry about after a bankruptcy, that would be a big financial burden off a lot of people. And then the federal loans can be paid off using one of the many payment options, such as income contingent or income sensitive or income based repayment plans. None of the private loans have these options.
Tony J
Oh noes! Liz Warren claims to have invented
The Internetthe OWS Movement. I bet she sighs, too.ruemara
@Kola Noscopy: So? Do you think your one vote is all that prevents MA from a Scott Brown Revolution? Jesus, man. Grow up. And if Warren wants to make a difference, she’ll discover she has to work with some odious people in the Senate to get things done, especially if there’s a substantial electorate in each state who thinks not voting means something on the Democratic side. Besides a win for the Republicans.
singfoom
@geg6: Yep. And Staffords and Pluses are capped at 4ish% and 8% respectively, while private student loans go into the 18% territory. With 50K at 18%, you need a killer paying job right after you leave school if you want to make the payments….
It was not always thus.
Kola Noscopy
@ruemara:
Wait a minute…I had repeatedly been assured here, int he most insistent and abusive tones, that it was UTTERLY THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD that every citizen of the united states be registered to vote even if they detest the corrupted system into which their vote will be cast, and that IF THEY DO NOT VOTE THEN THEY HAVE TO SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT EVERYTHING!?
And now you, a true blue obot, are telling me it doesn’t matter after all?
If there has been a change of policy among Obots, please elaborate and clarify. Thank you.
Corner Stone
@singfoom:
And my favorite part of that is the people on this blog who claim not abiding by the permit is, “acting out adolescent rebellion fantasies”.
Amir Khalid
@Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac:
Is that more or less how they decided on this message?
El Cid
@Davis X. Machina: Now let us sit upon the ground, and tell sad stories of the death of kings.
singfoom
@Corner Stone: Funny, I thought not abiding by protest permits was classic civil disobedience. I’ve been less active in the last week though, and I may have missed those authoritarian gems.
squirrelhugger
I live in a white blue-collar town outside Boston, and she’s going to have a very tough fight. MA is not Cambridge and Somerville, any more than CA is Berkeley. This will be as important and energizing to rightwingers as defeating Obama, and if that looks unlikely, more so. It was immensely symbolic to them to win Kennedy’s seat, Warren represents everything they oppose, and this will turn into a full-force no-limits national campaign. Those usually win.
PIGL
@Rafer Janders: except guns. Lots and lots of precious precious guns. In the hands of bitter ageing crackers.
DFH no.6
@Spaghetti Lee:
My response to the conservadems I know who express their “unhappiness” with OWS is a reasonable (so I think) argument that the primary genesis of these protests is the raw deal that the majority of people in this country have gotten recently due to the financial malfeasance of the wealthy and powerful conservative (mostly Republican) elites.
And, though there are quite a few older people participating (here in Phoenix the median age of the small Occupy group seems to be in the 40s somewhere), it’s the young people who have been especially hurt by the economic downturn, and they have every right to protest and demonstrate against that raw deal.
The conservadems get that, mostly, but still think the protesters are asking for things (like student loan relief) that the conservadems either don’t need themselves, or believe would be “unfair” (crabs in a bucket, again).
The conservadems also don’t like it that the police “have to” mix it up with the “troublemaker” element in the protests. They see this as the protesters’ fault.
There are reasons these people vote Democratic, but don’t consider themselves liberal.
Tom Levenson
@squirrelhugger: Don’t forget Brookline! ;)
Judas Escargot
@squirrelhugger:
I agree with all of this (I’ve been calling those blue-collar whites the “This Old House” voters).
I’m more optimistic than I was 6-8 weeks ago after having seen Warren actually campaign: She’s good, speaks clear plain English, and has a history of anti-Wall St. cred just as being anti-Wall Street is becoming fashionable. There will also be Obama coattails in 2012, unlike last year.
To fight her, the Brown camp will either have to engage a slime machine against the unlikely target of a prim and proper lady professor (which will turn off many voters here); or start spinning some weirdly surreal pro-bank message that will seem out of touch (assuming the OWS momentum continues).
ETA: My point is that the scene here has changed in less than two months, and I think this favors her now. Obviously, the scene could change back (or to something worse) between now and election time.
Corner Stone
@DFH no.6:
Specifically on this blog it’s because they are Republicans.
DFH no.6
@geg6:
Yes, of course I do.
And I believe doing something meaningful to help make student loan paybacks less onerous (particularly in this time of intractable economic doldrums, and worse) is a wonderful idea that would be very helpful to many who need that help.
I also believe that something similar ought to be done for underwater home mortgages.
But what you wrote in regards to student loans is much too complicated and nuanced for conservatives of any stripe (including conservadems). It’s a feature not a bug with them.
You make perfect sense, but it’s lost on conservatives.
What they hear in regards to student loans is some punk-ass kid who doesn’t want to pay back what they owe, when they (the upright conservatives) have always paid their bills.
Same thing applies to mortgages. Remember the Rick Santelli rant? That’s how conservatives (including most of the conservdems I know) feel, and how they view OWS.
Rafer Janders
@shortstop:
Still, my job occasionally brings me into contact with college Republican groups…
I had no idea you’d started working as a dominatrix.
Corner Stone
@Rafer Janders: Office Administrator at 1-800-RentBoy
Mnemosyne
@squirrelhugger:
@Judas Escargot:
Since someone brought it up a few weeks ago, I’m wondering how the Warren persona is going to play out with blue-collar Catholics in Mass. who may lean towards social conservatism. She reminds me of a nun, but in a good way — the really cool socially conscious nun who would sit at the lunch table with you and tell you all about how she lay down in front of a freight train to keep it from moving nukes that past weekend.
Cacti
@jayjaybear:
Or 1979
Because tax cuts is always the answer.
Rafer Janders
@Corner Stone:
Aha. Of course. They do good work.
Judas Escargot
@Mnemosyne:
I do agree with the “nun vibe”. Or “favorite teacher” vibe.
Blue-collar Catholics here are not what they once were: Over the past few decades, the more liberal/secular ones have left the Church, leaving a much more conservative Catholic base. (It’s like boiling salt water– boil some off, and you end up with saltier water).
I have no idea how Warren will play with that base– they don’t even seem able to explain why they loved Brown so much, he just wasn’t “one of those fucking Democrats like Kennedy” (seriously, that’s the basic answer you’ll get in real life).
But I do think her manner will play well here, in general. Yet another thing I was wrong about these past few months…
chrome agnomen
@jibeaux:
my thoughts exactly. as a long time bay stater, all i could think was, ‘OH NOES!! traffic snafu in beantown!!’ in other startling news, sun rises in east.
shortstop
@Corner Stone: Have you learned nothing by watching them? At this point in their young lives, they’re still dating very, very large girls as they furiously try to tamp down those funny feelings they get inside when they spot a handsome man. The rentboy scandals start breaking closer to middle age, after they’ve participated in a lot of public LGBT-bashing statements and/or legislation.
SoINeedAName48
You can’t wait for her to be a Senator?
I can’t wait for her to be our President!
drkrick
@shortstop:
Chunky girls. Chunky girls who resemble Reese Witherspoon, actually.
I like to think about how much fun Ross Douthat is going to have at his future Harvard reunions if that story was true and the woman recognized herself in it.
wilfred
If OWS has any kind of resonating figure in establishment politics it has got to be Dick Durbin. His observation that the banks ran the Senate, and implicity the country, got him hammered by both sides, yet…
He also recently urged people to get out of BOA, with the usual responses from the establishment.
Warren is running for office. She should stay with the Democrats and leave OWS in peace.
AA+ Bonds
@DFH no.6:
Work those knees, she won’t go down easy, bro…
AA+ Bonds
@drkrick:
Won’t it be funny enough that he wrote a story about how he couldn’t get it up, to prove that the rest of the world is sexually maladjusted, and, like, the people at those reunions make up about 50% of his overall readership so they definitely all know?
Seriously, I can’t believe that misstep on his part, it’s the saddest most pathetic thing, it’s like if David Brooks, while explaining why global shoe markets are a miracle from heaven, accidentally told a story about how he kicked a homeless guy’s teeth in
AA+ Bonds
One thing I believe: Ross Douthat is a Catholic. There is no other oyster that would allow the grain of erectile dysfunction to accumulate layer after layer of neurosis and trauma until it became that pearl of a story he told the entire world about how he couldn’t get a boner for a hot girl
demz taters
@Suffern ACE: I thought Opie and Anthony have been gone for a long time.