Seven p.m. EDT, televised by Boston station WBZ (Channel 4), moderated by smarmy local media pest & Republican sympathizer Jon Keller. Supposed to be livestreamed here, and I’ll embed video if it’s available, but don’t get your hopes up.
Livestream here:
Twitter tag, for those who tweet: #wbzdebate
Also, remember that Money is the mother’s milk of politics:
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Brown has a very good grasp — even a deathgrip — on all the most current Republican talking points. Warren has actual numbers and statistics at her fingertips.
Notice, too also, how affronted Brown is that this WOMAN person dares to contradict him! He’s been running “Independent Scott Brown (independently) in favor of strong, independent women (who are not at all Republican)” ads — anybody watching this is going to see how much respect he actually has for women who are not sufficiently deferent to Scott Brown…
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“Professor Warren, you have to stop scaring women — “ It ain’t women she’s scaring, Scotty boy. And if you keep trying to hide behind the previous holder of your seat by LYING ABOUT HIS RECORD, Zombie Ted Kennedy is going to rise from his grave and eat your tiny hamster-wheel brain…
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Keller: We have hundreds of thousands of janitors with college degrees. How come?
Warren: We need an educated workforce if we’re going to stay the world’s greatest economic power. We need an economy strong enough to let these educated people use their brains to make us better.
Brown: Yeah, well, Professor Warren makes A LOT OF MONEY from Hah-vaaad, so it’s all her fault kids got college debt! Bazinga! I win!
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Best summary I’ve seen so far, a tweet from Monica Potts: “Warren wants voters to see Brown as a member of the Republican team. Brown wants voters to see Warren as a radical.”
catperson
Wow. Scott Brown is a dick right out of the gate.
catperson
She should be using this time to attack his voting record, not be on the defensive.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
Thanks, AL (and Tom also, too).
Straight to the Native American thing. Nice move, asshole.
Tom Levenson
I just deleted my post stepping on this one — but after Harry Reid’s nice little twist of the shiv to get the bashful Brown up to the podium, I do want to make sure that folks get to take a look at what I think is brave Sir Scotty’s anthem.
Yutsano
@catperson: Being a dick makes him look macho. At least that’s the only logic I can think of.
Cambridge Chuck
The moderator is a long-time well-known Republican dick — now he’s calling her “Ms. Warren”, while the correct address is either “Dr. Warren” or “Professor Warren”. Dick.
JPL
How bout those Indians..
the Conster
She just needs to keep tying the national Republican party around his neck.
Anne Laurie
@Yutsano: Unfortunately, Brown “being a dick” is a major postive for a lot of Masshole Penis-Americans — many of them lifelong Democrats. More shame to them.
ChrisNYC
Early on but I think she’s kicking ass. She’s fearless on the “raising taxes” lie. Doesn’t back her up one bit.
different-church-lady
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God: Apparently his vision is outstanding: he can see the whites of her eyes from 5000 yards away.
dmsilev
After reading about Obama’s latest “gaffe”, I’m beginning to think that the right wing believes that they’re appearing in a 1950s TV game show talking with Groucho Marx and if they just say the magic word a duck will fall from the ceiling with money or votes.
catperson
@Yutsano: That Cherokee issue is resonating like crazy in Mass. I don’t get it–I suppose it’s just more of the GOP “other” game. Apparently people care that she was born in Oklahoma.
At least she’s getting going now. She’s stellar at doing common sense issue explanation.
YellowJournalism
@Cambridge Chuck: Good point. Was Ron Paul ever just addressed as “Mr. Paul” during debates? I just feel like this is more likely to happen to a woman, let alone a Dem.
There’s something about the use of “Ms.” that bugs me sometimes, too, especially when there’s an overemphasis of the title. It comes off as condescending and sarcastic.
catperson
@Cambridge Chuck: That may help her. The elitist thing is a problem for her, especially in western Mass.
TheMightyTrowel
@YellowJournalism: As a woman with a phd my anecdotal experience is that getting people to address you as dr. rather than Miss (!!) is incredibly difficult and often quite fraught.
Joel
@catperson: I think it’s just a calling people out on bullshit kind of deal — that does resonate for good reason. But it’s a minor issue and the republicans have spent all their ammo on that one anyways.
Yutsano
@Anne Laurie: I’m just dying for her to say something like, “I set up one of the strongest consumer protections that will directly help the people of Massachusetts. What have YOU done?” And make him show his work.
the Conster
Well they’re both going to protect hard working men and women. It’s a draw.
Comrade Jake
I almost can’t listen to this – Brown is such a prick.
PsiFighter37
I hate the ‘job creator’ meme. It’s such BS.
ETA: I turned it off. Scott Brown is a smarmy little prick. How on earth did Massholes pick this guy to represent them after Ted Kennedy? I want to say something rude about Red Sox fans, but it must speak to how unbelievably crappy Martha Coakley was as a candidate.
ChrisNYC
Taxmaggedon! Oh Scott Brown, you belong in the House with the rest of cranks.
Mnemosyne
@catperson:
I think it also hits on that white blue-collar male feeling that other people are gaming the system to get jobs as minorities while you get penalized for being white.
There is, of course, no evidence whatsoever that Warren ever tried to use her claims of Native American ancestry to gain any advantage whatsoever, but that’s the sore point that Brown is trying to exploit.
catperson
@Joel: Maybe. But it’s really lasting. My twitter feed and Bostonherald.com are just rife with “fauxcahontas” and the like. Not just today either.
nitpicker
Starting to see why this guy was trying to skip the debate. He seems like a big meathead.
catperson
@Mnemosyne: Good point. Also helps explain why she’s having such a hard time in western Mass.
Alison
Oh lord, he mentioned his stupid truck. Ugh, this fucking guy.
Comrade Jake
“Seventy dollahs to fill up the truck yesterday.” !
Jay in Oregon
@ChrisNYC:
I had to shut it off at that point. There’s a big part of me that loves reading and hearing about this stupid shit, but when it comes to actually watching it live, it just make me angry that someone like Brown should come even this close to being a Senator.
GregB
That settles it, Scott drives a truck, I’m voting for him.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
Sen Brown’s apparently decided to spend the evening blurting out gems he read in various local comments sections.
Dr Warren’s main risk here is of an “Al Gore moment”, one wayward sigh or an eyeroll. That’s why Brown went personal right out of the gate. So far, she’s doing well.
I would have lost this debate about 45 seconds in, BTW.
the Conster
That fucking truck is so played out Scott. His latest ad has him driving around in it too. What a fucking dumb ass.
different-church-lady
@Comrade Jake:
Gee, Scott, it’s almost as though you’d want to consider driving a more fuel-efficient vehicle or something.
nitpicker
Scott Brown in splitscreen when he’s not talking is hilarious.
SiubhanDuinne
@JPL:
LOL you are BAD.
IowaOldLady
If he’s a dick in public, maybe that’s a feature, not a bug. Voters can be as horrified as we are.
Right? Right?
Soonergrunt
Hopefully the bullshit won’t play well. I don’t think Brown’s going to do too well with woman-voters.
Yutsano
@the Conster: Ugh. Referring to his penile inadequacy replacement? Why not just say you got nothin’ Scotty Boy??
YellowJournalism
Hahaha! He mentioned his damn truck? My understanding is that guys who constantly bring up their truck are using it as cover for some insecurity. Pick one: mommy/daddy issues, masculinity, or the usually-true tiny penis syndrome.
Cambridge Chuck
Now moderator called both of them “Mr. Brown” and “Ms. Warren” — and in the first part they both seemed somewhat nervous. Warren’s calming down, I think.
SiubhanDuinne
@YellowJournalism:
Yep. “MZZZzzzzz” Warren.
Grates me the same way “Democrat” (as an adjective) grates me.
Mike Furlan
@PsiFighter37:
“unbelievably crappy Martha Coakley was as a candidate.” And a horrible person. If I had still been living in MA, I wouldn’t have voted for her either. Not Brown, I’d probably have skipped that line of the ballot.
Joel
@catperson: Yea, well, looking like fucking morons never stopped the wingnuts from screaming “teleprompter!!!!’ for three years, either.
catperson
Mentioning the Senate balance and Supreme Court–great play. Is Scott Brown always such a condescending douche bag? This is the first time I’ve seen him.
GregB
Can we start calling him Dick Brown.
JPL
After the debate I expect Tom and Anne to weigh in with their opinions.
Ben Franklin
Female candidates operate under a distinct disadvantage over males. She has to skirt the meanness, with a feminine softness that doesn’t offend the sensibilities of the maternal social expectation.
beltane
@Soonergrunt: In Hillary’s NY senate debate Rick Lazio tried the bullying dick approach and hasn’t been heard from much since.
Jay in Oregon
@SiubhanDuinne:
I presume it’s kind of sneer at the “politically correct” title of Ms.
Litlebritdifrnt
“I am sorry I didn’t vote for your boss” what kind of bullshit is that?
James E. Powell
I am anxious about this debate because so much rides on Warren beating Brown.
Do Mass voters have a problem with females?
dmsilev
Can someone please explain “Fighting for women since I was 6 years old”? WTF is he talking about?
JGabriel
It’s still early in the debate, but from what I’ve seen so far, Warren needs to talk more about what she will do for voters, not just focus on how bad Brown is.
That said, Scott Brown’s only theme seems to be: I will PROTECT JOB CREATORS! Actual working people in jobs can go screw themselves.
I mean, does Scott Brown, does the GOP, really think JOB CREATOR!’s form enough of the voting electorate to give him a win all by their lonesome Galtian selves?
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Shawn in ShowMe
Scott Brown: “I am against women being abused. I just don’t want them being paid equally or thinking for themselves.”
nitpicker
I call this election year Bullshitmadeupnamesmaggedon.
catperson
I hate to say it, but I bet Brown is playing better than Warren in Mass.
the Conster
He’s got some kind of annoying sneering tone that’s very offputting. He’s just coming across as a huge dick.
catperson
@dmsilev: He grew up in an abusive household.
ChrisNYC
That chuckle so says, “Man am I in over my head… Gonna needa beeah afta this”
Litlebritdifrnt
Why does he keep calling her Professor other than to project her as one of those pointy headed liberal professor types? Talk about speaking to the lowest common denominator.
nitpicker
She’s dead right on the Blunt Amendment and that will be all over the factchecks tomorrow.
“A health plan shall not be considered to have failed to provide the essential health benefits package described in subsection (a) to fail to be a qualified health plan, or to fail to fulfill ANY OTHER requirement under this title on the basis that it declines to provide coverage of specific items OR SERVICES because:
‘‘(i) PROVIDING COVERAGE (or, in the case of a sponsor of a group health plan, paying for coverage) of such IS CONTRARY TO the religious beliefs OR MORAL CONVICTIONS of the sponsor, issuer, or other entity offering the plan; or
“(ii) SUCH COVERAGE (in the case of individual coverage) IS CONTRARY to the religious beliefs OR MORAL CONVICTIONS of the purchaser or beneficiary of the coverage.
“(C) Until enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Public Law 111-148, in this section referred to as “PPACA”), the Federal Government has not sought to impose specific coverage or care requirements that infringe on the rights of conscience of insurers, purchasers of insurance, plan sponsors, beneficiaries, and other stakeholders, such as individual or institutional health care providers.”
JGabriel
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Shorter Brown: I’m all for equal pay for women, as long as they can’t sue JOB CREATORS to get it.
.
Joel
i think i’m coming to understand why poll analysts basically state that debates have no impact on electoral outcomes…
ChrisNYC
“These are things I think about on a regular basis.” Hahahaha.
Mnemosyne
@the Conster:
Unfortunately, based on what some of the Mass. residents on here have said, that’s going to go over very well with a large part of the (white male) electorate, even the ones who consider themselves Democrats.
Jon Rockoford
I’m prejudiced, I’ll admit, but Brown comes across to me as a smarmy, stupid, defensive jerk. Is it just my impression? Who’s voting for this moron?
P.S. When he mentioned the truck, Warren should have used the “There you go again; took you longer than I thought.”
SiubhanDuinne
@TheMightyTrowel:
Not just academic doctorates. My chiropractor is a young woman who introduces and identifies herself on the phone as “Dr. [SmithJones].”
I’m nearly three times her age. She calls me by my first name. I call her “Dr. [SmithJones].” I get a strong sense that she’s been dissed once to often by colleagues and patients, knocked herself out for her D.C., and FSMdammit, she’s going to fucking OWN that title! I have no problem with it. (She’s an excellent bone-squisher, so I’m going to keep seeing her no matter what she’s called.)
the Conster
@Mnemosyne:
Yeah, I know – I live here. We’re not known as Massholes for nothing.
nitpicker
@Jon Rockoford: Or say, “It’s not like you’re doing anything that requires a truck with balls, why not get a hybrid?”
FlipYrWhig
That stupid truck… I wish someone would point out, and this was in the media coverage of his first run, that the reason he has a truck was that (1) he wanted to be able to tow a horse trailer to his daughter’s show-jumping competitions, and (2) he ended up not being able to use it for that because he couldn’t figure out how to back up with the trailer attached.
It’s a particularly stupid and, dare I say, Romney-esque origin story.
kathy a.
oh, kill me now. he thanks her brothers for their service, and then says we ought to stomp on into iran.
plus, you know, all the other crap he has said.
the Conster
@nitpicker:
Or ask him why he’s not wearing his pink leather shorts.
nitpicker
“We cannot have a nuanced approach.” Well, of course not, Scott. God forbid.
Shawn in ShowMe
Scott Brown:”We can’t use nuance when dealing with Iran. They don’t understand nuance. Now let me tell you about the nuances I agree with.”
Yutsano
@nitpicker: Seventy bucks to fill a truck honestly isn’t that much. My parents will drop a cool $100 to fill the farm truck. Luckily it’s a diesel and doesn’t need it much.
JGabriel
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Scott Brown:
Was Brown on the “GOP Swim Naked and Pee in the Sea O’ Galilee” tour?
I’m thinking trips to Israel may be a topic Republicans should avoid for the time being.
.
David M
@Mike Furlan:
Given how Coakley would have voted in the Senate compared to Brown, care to explain how the GOP having another vote was a good thing?
the Conster
I just don’t see warmongering on Iran working anywhere, but especially here. This can’t possibly help him – didn’t he just complain about gas prices? Can’t he connect the dots as well as a two year old?
joes527
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God:
Yeah, but does leaping over the podium to strangle the smarmy little prick really count as losing?
SiubhanDuinne
@Jay in Oregon:
Yes, that’s always been my assumption.
Jon Rockoford
@SiubhanDuinne: Chiropractors are only pretend doctors. Unqualified masseuses is more like it.
Warren Terra
@SiubhanDuinne:
Insisting on being called “Dr.” and then referring to your interlocutor with their first name is just plain rude. If someone refers to you by your first name, and you’re not a kid and not an underling, you should do it right back to them.
Davis X. Machina
There’s an expectation in MA going back to the days of machine ethnic politics, that it has to be smashmouth, or you’re not serious.
Generations of goo-goo, polite Republicans with three names — one of them Lodge or Cabot — were the opposition. Frank Sargent, e.g. or Frank Hatch, or Chub Peabody.
So ugliness, and head-butting, and dickitude, became associated with Democrats, and populism, and even progressivism.
People only remember Dukakis, but in a lot of ways Ed King is the prototypical MA Democrat.
Shawn in ShowMe
Scott Brown: “The reason why it costs so much to go to a no-name liberal arts college is because Harvard pays Professor Warren too much.”
the Conster
@Davis X. Machina:
OMG forgot about Ed King. He was a fascist.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jon Rockoford:
Not going to get into that argument, except to say that is NOT my experience.
Warren Terra
@Mike Furlan:
I remember the anemic, apathetic Coakley-for-Senate campaign. The last week or so was just incredible: there was this faint hope that an outraged electorate, energized by loathing for her inadequacy, would storm to the polls to vote her in despite herself, lest the Republicans get the seat. The people angrily and resentfully coming out to vote for a hopeless and rather disliked candidate was just deeply weird.
Keith G
Are there sunspots or are we under nuclear attack? Almost everything I’m doing on the web is either painstakingly slow or stopping all together or send ing me places I didn’t even intend. this includes my phone which is acting particularly unsmart.
Davis X. Machina
@the Conster: I crossed party lines to vote against him.
But he was a Democrat.
FlipYrWhig
Here’s the bit from the New York Times Magazine profile of Brown from 2010 that I sometimes feel like only I remember:
That story is the OPPOSITE of manly-man stuff, or at least by all rights it should be.
Source: Where Scott Brown is coming from, 2/28/2010.
JGabriel
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Shorter Brown: I protected Sub-chapter “S” corporation owners! Alla you Sub-chapter “S” corporation owners, I’m YOUR guy.
.
MazeDancer
Brown is nasty mean. Make women flinch every time he goes for her throat mean.
At first, it felt like he was whatever is the MA version of “good ole boy”. Tough guy that tough guys will like. But as it goes on and he gets repulsively mean.
MikeJ
@Yutsano:
Do they get to use the red fuel?
the Conster
@Warren Terra:
I went to the election eve rally for her in Framingham – it was surreal. Karen Tumulty from Time was there and a bunch of other media people, and we cheered and cheered and when she finally entered the auditorium she barely made eye contact, and when she walked out she diffidently shook a couple of hands of people who were right in front of her. I wrote in my notebook, game over.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
Asbestos? WTF?
New meme (to me).
Davis X. Machina
@JGabriel: The one-truck contractor is the heart of the New England Republican vote. There aren’t enough god-botherers or Confederates up here to matter. It’s basically a form of Poujadisme…
Warren Terra
@SiubhanDuinne: Probably shouldn’t venture into the debate about Chiropractic too much, but Rockoford isn’t wrong. Mind you, a good and serious masseuse is nothing to sneer at – but so long as Chiropractic education and advertisement continues to claim effects on disease and disabilities beyond joint aches and the like, as long as it makes nonsensical assertions similar to those of acupuncture, Reiki, and the like, I’ll feel free to denounce them as the fools and charlatans they are.
Cassidy
@Keith G: Maybe that new show Revolution was foreshadowing.
kathy a.
he just called nuclear “clean energy.” a bit over a year past fukishima. i dunno, maybe i’m nervous about that.
JGabriel
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Boston Globe on the asbestos charges Brown is lying about:
.
kathy a.
@JGabriel: thanks, jgabriel.
Warren Terra
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God: Dunno what the Asbestos thing is – I’m not streaming the debate – but maybe he’s going for the Canadian vote? It’s a hot political debate up there right now, with all the usual anti-environmental, anti-health wingers denouncing job-killing regulation.
Steeplejack
@Anne Laurie:
Can you change the ActBlue thermometer to track money rather than number of contributors? It would seem to make more sense.
raven
@Jon Rockoford: It’s like arguing about the best pizza or bbq, fucking waste of time. If people want to get that shit more power too em. No motherfucker from Life college is laying a finger on me.
nitpicker
Why doesn’t she explain to him the global oil market and how increasing the oil we drill here won’t keep us from buying oil from the Middle East?
Cassidy
@SiubhanDuinne: Chiropractors, in general, are disregarded by the medical community. I had an interesting conversation with the one I was seeing a few years back regarding peer reviewed publications on the holistic claims that they make. They have their own journals so it’s “peer reviewed” but nothing submitted to the major medical journals.
That being said, and anecdotal, when my wife started to get her sinus infections, a simple manipulation provided instant relief. Also, Army medicine has embraced the use of chiropractors.
PsiFighter37
One of the happier things about this MA-Sen race is that Curt Schilling is nowhere to be seen. Aside from the mortal sin of playing for the Red Sox, it was fantastically awesome to see his video game company go under. For a Teabagger who campaigned vigorously with Brown in the special election, it was great to see him begging for another handout from RI – and then bitching about it when Chafee told him to stick it where the sun don’t shine.
Warren Terra
@Steeplejack:
On my display (Windows, Chrome browser) it’s showing both, one above the other next to the thermometer, currently 48 donors and $6529 donated.
The goal, though, is 1000 donors, which seems unlikely of success.
newnumbertwo
Being a Colorado-an, I haven’t paid much attention to this race other than the polls, but Brown seems aggressively negative and is coming off as an asshole…
raven
It may be delusional but we’re happier deluded. And delusion makes us perform better on average:
Superstition can be performance enhancing.
Irrational overconfidence increases producitivity and improves teamwork.
“Self-deception has been associated with stress reduction, a positive self-bias, and increased pain tolerance, all of which could enhance motivation and performance during competitive tasks.”
Read more: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bakadesuyo/~3/NUVL9eqQEwo/cross-your-fingers-and-read-this-post-how-to#ixzz273dIc99T
raven
@Cassidy: What about Army Intelligence?
JPL
@nitpicker: There are a few things she could have highlighted but I think his attitude caught her off guard. He might have impressed a few people tonight by acting like a jerk but IMO it will quickly wear thin.
Danack
From @Ihatediamonds
“Drink every time #Brown makes your skin crawl with a smarmy-creepy deflecting comment. #wbzdebate”
I should have bought more booze on the way home.
James E. Powell
@nitpicker:
Why doesn’t she explain to him the global oil market and how increasing the oil we drill here won’t keep us from buying oil from the Middle East?
Because it takes more than half a sentence to explain it and more than half a brain to understand it.
No politician of either party has made this simple point clear at any time in the last forty years. In fact, most adopt the argument that we can make American free of ‘foreign’ oil. So the first one who says, “We can’t actually do that” is going to get slaughtered for speaking the truth.
JGabriel
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Davis X. Machina:
Ah, thanks. I thought Brown was just cluelessly courting the rich people vote in disregard of the rest of the MA electoratep; I had no idea Sub-chapter ‘S” corporation was a New England dog whistle.
.
Shawn in ShowMe
Even if you account for truck-driving S-Corp owners who share Scott Brown’s serious thoughts, Warren gave him a worse beating than Biden gave Proud Palin.
JPL
@Danack: gosh, I’m glad I don’t have any.
Cassidy
@raven: We have that?
Davis X. Machina
@James E. Powell:
Nonsense. President Mondale did it all the time…
the Conster
@Davis X. Machina:
Ed King was a Nixon type Republican who ran as a Dem because he could win. All of his State Police escort bullshit made him look like a little Napoleon. I think the prototypical governor was more Bill Weld.
raven
Cee Lo up with that killer football opening!
Ay O,let’s go!
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@JPL:
The local twitter traffic seems mostly negative.
I don’t think his performance will hold up well to fact-checking.
Guaranteed the “bully” tone will play well within certain circles. I have no idea who it will turn off, or how many.
SNL making fun of the Romney tape as I type.
Turgidson
Reading this and the updates in the post, Brown sounds like some kind of giant douche. I really hope he loses. Calling her “Professor Warren” every single time he addresses her? That’s just fucking annoying. Drives me nuts the extent to which GOP campaigns are simply empty marketing ploys.
raven
@Cassidy: S2 baby!
Cassidy
@raven: I thought they were the travel office. They always said we had to go see them before we took leave to another country…
Mnemosyne
@MazeDancer:
It’s a fine line to walk, and I’ll be curious to see if it backfires on him at some point. The same people who want Brown to be a “tough guy” also won’t like it if he’s too mean to Warren because she’s a lady.
Sort of like how Biden had to hold back when he debated Palin because he and his advisors knew that he’d look like an enormous dick if he attacked her the same way he would attack a man. Sexism can cut both ways.
raven
@Turgidson: See we have people bitching because the moderator called her Ms or Miss, didn;t call her Doc or Prof, now we’re mad the other dick did!
Davis X. Machina
@the Conster: King was a Democrat his whole life until ’85 — after being governor. And there were plenty of his ilk in the party in those days.
Kate in TX
Largely a lurker here, but have had some experience with that asshole Scott Brown…was a public library director in MA in the early 2000’s and we had invited Brown to our annual “legislative breakfast” when he was a state senator (we would make our heartfelt pitch for more state funding for libraries) and he began his remarks by insulting everyone in the room…remarks to the effect of “I don’t know why I’m here- all librarians are liberals, blah, blah”. We had never seen a politician present himself this poorly…just a total dumb moron with an enormous chip on his shoulder. There is more, but you get the idea…
WaterGirl
AL, thanks for this debate thread!
raven
@Cassidy: I love it!
gogol's wife
@Cambridge Chuck:
I don’t know if this is true at Harvard, but in the old days at Yale the professors considered it beneath their dignity to be called “Dr.” or “Professor.” They preferred “Mr.” “Professor” was for people at unimportant places. Perhaps she requested not to be addressed as “Dr.” or “Professor” (which would speak well for her, in my opinion).
ETA: And of course my language above betrays that all those professors were men.
Steeplejack
How can you guys watch any of this stuff?!
I just went fumbling through the C-SPAN channels trying to find the debate and instead found some hearing in which Rep. David Camp (R), chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, is blowing on about about how the capital-gains tax rate is so onerous because it suffers from “double taxation” and the effective rate ends up being 45%. My blood pressure shot up 45% in two minutes, I know that. Ugh.
I’m with the person upthread who said it’s okay to read about this stuff afterwards, but watching it live is often too painful.
Back to baseball–and now football in a few minutes.
kathy a.
can someone who speaks dude MA translate for me? i thought warren looked great, and had good substantive answers right at the tip of her tongue. and i thought he looked like a big joke poser — how many times did he actually need to say, “as the only one in this race…blah blah yadda nothing.”
waratah
I was glad when she finally stopped him from saying he was voting for things like Kennedy, and she was wonderful how she did it.
JGabriel
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Turgidson:
And it drives me nuts the way Republicans belittle academic achievement. It’s almost like Republicans want to promote ignorance.
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MazeDancer
@Turgidson:
The Professor bit was not reminiscent of the smooth force of Matt Damon taking out the uppity Harvard jerks at the bar in Good Will Hunting, it was rude, low, and tacky.
Have seen a few Brown commercials on actual TV, and he comes across in them like a nice, friendly guy. Was shocked tonight at how nasty mean he is.
the Conster
@Davis X. Machina:
He was Reagan’s favorite Democratic governor, and King endorsed him. So, yeah, he was a “Democrat” opportunistically. Massachusetts politics is weird.
raven
@gogol’s wife: The best argument I ever heard about this bullshit was on Car Talk. Some dude called in and called himself “Doctor” and they jumped all over him laughing because they felt it was bs unless he was an MD. After a couple of weeks of people calling in they determined that MD’s were not originally called Doctor, Clergy, Lawyers and Academics were. I like using mine with my Army rank, Dr Private!
JPL
On the WBZdebate twitter feed, it appears Brown left the studio quickly.
GregB
Brown still thinks his tea-bag victory gave him some invincible armor.
I think he’s going to dick his way out of this Senate seat.
Elizabeth Warren should have teed up Lloyd Bentsen’s old line.
I knew Ted Kennedy, Mr. Brown, you’re no Ted Kennedy.
the Conster
@Kate in TX:
Brown was my state Senator, and my daughter worked for three years for my state Rep., who had to interact with Brown and his staff every day. She hates him, my state Rep. hates him, and everyone who had to work with him at the State House hates him. He’s a free rider (surprise!) who has glamour shots of himself all over his office. He showed up to take credit and get his pic taken after all of the hard work had already been done by the Representative’s staff. He’s a giant dick.
ETA: In my house, he’s always referred to as Senator Nitwit.
quannlace
\
He’s probably pissed that he didn’t get a ‘snow day’ from Harry Reid, and had to go forward with the debate.
JPL
@kathy a.: Unless the attitude has changed, MA residents have always supported education. Warren’s answers were excellent and Brown accused
her of making to much money.
Did anyone find it odd how many times he was playing kissy face with the moderator?
Or something like that.Suffern Ace
I’m very confused why the thread went to asbestos briefly. What constituency is pro asbestos?
Mnemosyne
@gogol’s wife:
I remember reading in a Miss Manners column that it was its own kind of snobbery, because the assumption was that of course all of the professors had PhDs, so they didn’t have to advertise the fact by calling themselves “Dr.”
Fun fact: IIRC, in Great Britain surgeons are still called “Ms.” or “Mr.” instead of doctor as part of a long-standing tradition. I remember them using it as a character point on “ER” when British import Elizabeth Corday (Alex Kingston) had to get used to people calling her “Dr.” instead of “Ms.”
Mnemosyne
@Or something like that.Suffern Ace:
Big corporations and the people who overidentify with them.
Steeplejack
@Warren Terra:
I’m seeing the numbers to the right. What I meant is that the actual thermometer graphic is tracking contributors instead of dollars. It seems nonsensical. “Help us reach 1,000”? Big deal. It’s the dollar amount that is important, I would think.
Michael2
@catperson:
Do you live in Mass.? I do, and my sense is that very FEW people care about it, but I’m in metro, so maybe it’s different in the West. The _Globe_ archives has three things in the last four days on her _family’s_ attitude toward it. I don’t see *anything* suggesting that it’s a big deal here.
Shawn in ShowMe
So for you Commonwealth experts, how would a well-meaning blue dog female, like Claire McCaskill, play there? Would she be doing better or worse than Warren in the polls?
Davis X. Machina
@Shawn in ShowMe: Not unless she sounded like Roseanne Barr doing a Harry Truman impression, no.
It’s not Warren’s politics, it’s her affect. The state was run by walruses for so long, a lot — not all, but a lot — of people have an ideé fixe about what ‘politician’ means.
gogol's wife
@Mnemosyne:
Yes, I had to explain that to my husband when we were watching “Inspector Morse.” He was amazed.
raven
@Mnemosyne: Everyone calls Doc Martin “wanker”!
wrb
@MikeJ:
About this we do not speak.
dmsilev
@Mnemosyne: It depends a lot on the other person as well. What I’ve seen is that undergrads will address a faculty member as ‘Professor Smith’ or ‘Doctor Jones’. Grad students pretty quickly move to calling them ‘Tom’ and ‘Wendy’.
That’s in the hard sciences; other fields may be different.
Princess
I just caught the last five minutes. Brown sounded angry and bullying. He’s going to remind women of all the men in their lives who try to get them to do what they don’t want to do by bullying them. Warren seemed calm and on message, and her reasons to vote against Brown were strategic, not personal. Since most people seem to like both candidates, that contrast could be important. Brown sounded like he was talking to her; Warren was talking directly to the audience. Well, that’s how this woman saw it. I don’t know how she’ll come across to MA men. She wasn’t nagging or patronizing; that’s got to count for something, i hope.
Robert Sneddon
@Mnemosyne: The top British cutters prefer “Sir” rather than a plain “Mr.”. The only accolade that outranks a K is being able to put FRS after their name.
the Conster
@Princess:
I’m thinking that Brown is the mirror image of the really pretty girl who everyone crushes on, until she keeps talking and then you want her to just shut up now. He’s been able to keep his personal appearances limited to ads in the truck. I think this is the first time everyone in the Commonwealth has really gotten a good up close look at him on TV, and he’s simply a dumbass giant dick.
amk
@Cambridge Chuck: She should have pulled ‘that is Senator Boxer to you’ on that punk.
Joel
@dmsilev: I always use Professor when meeting one for the first time. It’s courteous and respectful, and establishes their rank over postdoctoral fellows such as myself.
TG Chicago
Sorry if this was already mentioned, but via Digby, we have a new quote from Queen Ann Romney:
“My horse has more style and more class in its hoof than they do in their whole deal.”
At least the Romneys don’t sound like out-of-touch upperclass twits.
MikeJ
@wrb: He did specifically say a “farm truck”, so I assumed farm plates, which means you can legally use it.
MazeDancer
@Kate in TX:
Wow, Brown insulted the room of people he was addressing from the start? Like tonight when he started with the ridic American Indian thing. (Which no one cares about. And to which Warren gave a great “It’s family” answer.
Thanks for that info. So tonight was his regular jerkitude mode.
YoohooCthulhu
Re: Referring to Ph.Ds or faculty as “Dr.” or “Professor”
Times change–I personally think it’s really weird to be called “Dr.” or “Professor” when you’re not talking in your professional capacity. I personally cringe whenever someone outside of work refers to me as “Dr.”. So she probably wisely requested not to be addressed that way by the moderator. It makes me cringe every time some random news anchor used to call Frist “Dr. Frist” or Ron Paul “Dr. Paul”.
Besides, Warren is a J.D., not a Ph.D, and it’s usually not proper to call people with J.Ds “Dr.”
Violet
What’s with these Republicans being tired all the time. Romney’s always tired too.
WaterGirl
I had never seen Brown interact with anyone before, and my first thought after the opening question was “what a dick!”.
If that’s what passes for a sitting US senator these days, now wonder our country is so messed up at the moment.
I really like Elizabeth Warren and I contribute to her campaign, but I didn’t feel this debate was the knockout that I had hoped for.
JPL
@Joel: It didn’t appear that Brown used for those reasons.
He is a real jerk.
PsiFighter37
I have no clue how MA politics works, but I would have to imagine that Menino finally coming out and endorsing Warren tomorrow will help a lot – he’s ruled that city Daley-style for a long time and must have a hell of a GOTV machine.
MikeJ
@WaterGirl:
He’s considered one of the sanest of the Republicans.
Morzer
Something that may be more significant than the debate tonight is the fact that Mumbles Menino removed his capacious ass from the fence today and will endorse Warren and appear with her at a rally tomorrow. That says to me that he thinks Brown will lose. Given that 4 of the last 5 polls agree with him (and the one that didn’t under-sampled Democrats quite seriously), I think Brown needed to do better in the debate.
Scott Alloway
@JPL: Read the Globe. Native American heritage proved. You must must be from away, as we say in New England.
Linnaeus
As one who will have a Ph.D. sometime within the next year, I have zero desire to be addressed as “Doctor”, particularly when I am outside of academic circles. I don’t see why I should get any special deference because I have a Ph.D. That doesn’t make me better than someone else who doesn’t have one.
Kate in TX
@MazeDancer:
Yes, just a nasty general attitude right from the get go…couldn’t even bother with the niceties, if I recall..”thanks for inviting me, I love libraries”. I also have a close friend who boarded her horse at the same barn as his daughter’s horse and has many stories about how unfriendly and superior his wife and daughters were to everyone at the barn.
He’s exactly the smirking prick that he comes across as on TV….
JPL
@Scott Alloway: Although I was raised in MA, I moved when I was 23. (forty years ago)
I don’t think Scott will debate again. He’ll be asked to be sent overseas on a secret meeting.
the Conster
Well, I’ve always thought that if Warren got the Hillary vote, she’d kick Brown’s ass. I think that Brown is another victim of the Republican bubble, and has spent too long talking to Dennis and Callahan who fellate him at every opportunity. He did himself no favors tonight coming across as a giant dick, and Mayor Menino’s endorsement means that the game. is. on. The woman’s vote is going to be key.
JGabriel
__
__
the Conster:
__
Something I wrote a few months back seems appropriate here:
.
Davis X. Machina
@PsiFighter37: Menino will help a bit, but only a bit. Warren doesn’t need much help in Boston proper — she needs to do better in the exurbs to the city’s southeast — towards Plymouth — and further out beyond Rt. 9/Metrowest, out Fitchburg-Leominster way.
raven
@Linnaeus: The only time mine comes in handy is in my role as a faculty development person. It’s bullshit but it gives me credibility with faculty that I would not have otherwise. I would like to run into a few of the high school teachers who gladly helped pack me off to the Army after my junior year. They helped motivate me to stick with it when I hit rough spots.
Robert Sneddon
@YoohooCthulhu: Different places do it differently. An old acquaintance, now sadly deceased used the full set of “Herr Professor Doctor Count[0]” if he was attending a symposium in Europe — in Germany he could have added “Ingeneur” to the word salad too. He stuck to Professor in the UK and America; at the bar he was Oskar.
[0]He got out of Romania[1] after the war having fought the Germans on the wrong side of the partisan divide and officially his title was taken from him by the Communists when they did away with all titles of nobility. He held on to it anyway and wasn’t ashamed to use it for leverage if necessary.
[1] Yes, it was the bit that was called Transylvania. And he did look a bit like Grandpa Munster too.
Davis X. Machina
@efgoldman:
A lot of them wound up in the Charles Street Jail…. walruses, the lot of them.
the Conster
@JGabriel:
Senator Fuckwit works too. In the credit where credit is due department, he’s a hardworking campaigner. The guy is a nonpareil campaigner. When he was running for his last state Senate campaign, I think he personally called most of his constituents. I answered the phone when he called and I told him he was not going to get my vote and that my daughter worked for my Dem. state Rep. and he proceeded to tell me for the next 10 minutes or so how he knew her, how proud I must be, blah blah. He’s a great campaigner. Everything else, not so much.
raven
@Linnaeus: My chair was a blue collar guy from Jersey, first advanced degree in his family, and he was the most condescending asshole on earth with that shit. I once told him not to “get above his raisin’!
Linnaeus
@raven:
Exactly – he was clearly overcompensating. I could see where the use of honorifics like “Professor” or “Doctor” might be useful and/or expected in some very specific contexts, but on the whole, I don’t care about the title.
Darkrose
Working at a university, I’ve had more than one faculty member upset because I responded to their email with “Hello Ms./Mr. Faculty Member” instead of “Greetings, Most High and Noble Distinguished Doctor and Professor of Incredibly Esoteric Discpline Faculty Member.”
Then there’s the instructor–a lecturer, mind you, not even tenure track–who insists on being known in all campus systems by her ridiculously pretentious pen name.
Schlemizel
@raven:
Note that both the car talk boys have doctorates from MIT – those are not two ignorant grease monkeys – They are very smart & educated grease monkeys!
My high school principal had a doctorate & insisted everyone refer to him as “doctor” I knew him from politics since I was a little kid & hated him early on. It pleased me to no end when he would correct someone who referred to him as mister to grab my side & say “Oh doctor can you tell me what this pain in my side is?” I was not is favorite student
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@PsiFighter37:
True. But that ‘machine’ also happens to be 5-10 miles in radius, tops.
DXM pegged it (w/ the one-truck contractor), Brown’s audience is the ‘This Old House’ voter. He did well with them, I’m sure.
No Al Gore moment for Warren, she comported well, and didn’t get baited.
Scott Brown apparently did come off as ‘mean’ to most people.
raven
@Schlemizel: Well, not really but I thought so too for a long time. I fucking love them either way
Gin & Tonic
@PsiFighter37:
Not so fantastically awesome for the people who lost their jobs.
Metropro
I live in Massachusetts. Scott Brown did a great job creating an image of himself as a nice guy. Just a regular guy with a truck. Someone just like your neighbor. A moderate who would do the sensible thing. But, as you can see from his performance, he’s completely destroyed that image with his behavior. He came across as angry, abusive and inarticulate. He was nervous. Talked fast and couldn’t put together a coherent sentence. Made all the worse by trying to shoe horn in inane Republican talking points whenever he could.
Elizabeth Warren, on the other hand, came across as a genuinely nice human being — kind, articulate and intelligent. The kind of person you’d want to put in the Senate. Scott Brown came across as angry mechanic.
Elizabeth Warren currently has a 5 point edge according four polls. The more voters see Scott Brown exposed like this the worse he will do.
In the special election, Scott Brown got enormous support from right wing radio talk show hosts on the various sports channels. It was 24 hours a day for months. It gave him an enormous edge. But is anyone really surprised that the Republican candidate is a misogynist?
kasnarski
Scott Brown has been fighting for woman’s rights since he was six?
I don’t know about you, but I was playing with tinker toys and legos.
He really fucking said that?
YoohooCthulhu
@Robert Sneddon:
Oh, I’m well aware it’s done differently elsewhere. But I’d argue in contemporary circles in the US, I’m not that unusual, especially with younger people. They usually ask before debates what the candidates would prefer to be addressed as, and I don’t doubt that Warren chose “Ms.” as an uncontroversial option. Remember that Barack Obama for a lot of his early political career was a J.D. (non-tenure track) faculty member and never, never went by “Professor” even though the university definitely addressed him that way.
Schlemizel
@raven: funny, there was a story about them in the local paper claiming PHds – damn liberal media!
Still MIT is not Earls keys made while you wait and business college.
jomike
@Princess:
^This. I think she got under his skin toward the end there when she pointed out that GOP control of the Senate would result in Jim Inhofe running the Environment Committee. Brown looked all sorts of annoyed. So she repeated it.
Bago
@Keith G: You are infected with malware.
raven
@Schlemizel: OK, other sites say Tom does
http://www.cartalk.com/content/tom-and-rays-bios-photos-2
catperson
@Michael2: No. I have a lot of friends and family in Boston and we’ve talked about why Warren isn’t polling better. But I’m really struck by how commenters continually go back to her Cherokee ancestry. That issue should have been dead months ago. But yeah, all anecdotal.
burnspbesq
@James E. Powell:
Did you see “The Town?”
Jeremy Renner’s character was a lot like the median Massachusetts voter.
catperson
@burnspbesq: Jeremy Renner was in The Town? Huh. He left no impression on me. I want a Hawkeye movie.
rb
@Mike Furlan: As I did. I just couldn’t bring myself to vote for her.
Mnemosyne
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God:
I’m guessing it’s going to come down to whether the post-debate chatter is “Brown put that uppity professor biotch in her place!” or “Brown was so mean to that nice professor lady!”
steverino
@the Conster:
All I remember of King is being stuck in traffic because of a d*mnd Ed King balloon floating above an overpass.
Bill Arnold
@Keith G:
Re solar storms, no. Might want to bookmark spaceweather.com or sign up for their email alerts. Solar wind speed is a little higher than normal (530 kps) and there have been a few CMEs from the other side of the sun (not earth directed) in the last day.
And no obvious nuclear war. :-)
Palli
@MazeDancer:
He was cornered by a thinking person- cameras don’t think…though camera operators have been known to stiffle their laughter.
Regnad Kcin
@steverino: ah, but which Ed King…?
bonus points if you remember the different middle initials
steverino
@Regnad Kcin:
I was a young bubblehead traveling from Kittery ME to Groton CT. MA was just something between. But it was 82-ish. We were saturated with commercials and just ignored them.
Gin & Tonic
@Regnad Kcin: Love the nym.
Corner Stone
@catperson: Did you actually even see the movie.
MoeLarryAndJesus
@kasnarski:
He also says he has secret meetings with kings and queens and that he had a basketball scholarship to Tufts, a school that doesn’t give athletic scholarships.
Scotty is a very strange boy.
WaterGirl
@kasnarski: Twice. He said it twice.
patroclus
The use of “Dr.”, “Professor,” and “Mr. or “Ms.” varies regionally, generationally and between and among institutions. At the Texas college where my Dad taught, he, a PhD, was routinely referred to as “Dr.” because the school itself wished to make known to those in the town and prospective students and parents that their academic professionals were well qualified. He is known as “Dr.” to everyone, young and old, and to alums and students alike as “Dr.” still.
At the Illinois university where I teach, I am always “Professor.” And nothing else, ever. This is because of the egalitarian nature of our faculty in which all of us are referred to always the exact same way. So as not to distinguish between disciplines or seniority or levels of proficiency.
At many many other universities, it is virtually always “Mr.” or “Ms.” I believe that this is because there are a LOT of non-PHD’s that actually do the teaching, but I have been told that, as someone said above about Yale, that it is a desire to be non-elitist and because of the sneers that this can sometines arouse.
Who really knows, but each university and college deals with the issue and they handle it differently so the only thing accurate to say is that it varies.
SFAW
@Regnad Kcin:
J and M, but I’ll be damned if I can remember which was which.
SFAW
@raven:
Enjoy them while you still can.
pseudonymous in nc
Davis X. has pinned this all the way through: Mass. has a bunch of ‘This Old House’ / WEEI guys who are just plain parochial poujadistes, who use their one-truck businesses to fiddle their taxes and pay for their summer cabins, and they vote.
JoeShabadoo
@David M: Because no one has to vote party line and shouldn’t all the time. Voting for every Dem no matter what is a recipe for disaster.
This is Mass. where we now have the chance to vote in a far better Dem because a Republican won last time. If this was some borderline red state where you take what you can get I would hold my nose but its not. Electing a shitty Dem or shitty candidate in this seat would have set them up for possibly life and I find that unacceptable.
Mariner II
I was wondering the same thing. I think he came across as arrogant and condescending. Not good for him with woman voters. It makes him come across like picking on a girl, which never goes over very well.