The Boston Globe is, so far, cautiously pro-Warren, but that takes second place to tweaking a former hireling of the competition:
In a former life, after he was Deval Patrick’s campaign manager and chief of staff but before he took leadership of Elizabeth Warren’s US Senate race, Doug Rubin worked part-time as a columnist for the Boston Herald.
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Drawing on his experience in Democratic politics, including working against Republicans in a state that picked a member of the GOP to be governor for 16 consecutive years before Patrick, Rubin offered uncommon perspective about the happenings on Beacon and Capitol hills.
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He tapped that network and expertise in June to issue a pointed warning: Democratic officials in Washington should cease carping about the lack of a high-profile candidate to challenge US Senator Scott Brown as the Republican seeks reelection next year…
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“The speculation from D.C. hurts the existing (Democratic) field, which is already filled with strong, talented candidates. It keeps donors who are loyal to the party on the sidelines, and forces some very important grass-roots organizers to hold off from making a commitment to a candidate. It also creates media stories about the supposed weakness of the field, which is a disservice to those candidates who have chosen to run.”
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Two months later, the candidate who was the focus of much of that D.C. affection and entreaties – Warren – left Washington and the Obama administration and returned home to Massachusetts. One of her first acts? She hired Rubin to advise her as she weighed a Senate campaign.
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Last week, during an interview with the Globe’s Joan Vennochi, Rubin disputed that Warren was the Beltway creation against which he warned, and which he feared would be so harmful to the democratic process…
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“What I was railing against was the guys in D.C. coming in and anointing a candidate, and I think Elizabeth Warren has done the opposite,” Rubin said. “She was taken her campaign to the living rooms of Massachusetts, which is exactly what I was advocating for.”
It’s a pretty fair article, despite that, and Rubin’s correct that there’s a difference between “Don’t daydream about a Great Democratic Savior being air-dropped from the Oval Office” and “Okay, now we’ve got a sterling candidate with a proven record, as opposed to a half-dozen well-meaning individuals whose combined name recognition factor hangs in the single digits even among Mass-based political junkies.” But it won’t be the last of the concern-trolling about how flashy media darling Elizabeth Warren cruelly broke the cherished dreams of Setti Warren (no relation), Andrew Massey, Alan Khazei, Tom Conroy, Marisa DeFranco, and Herb Robinson.
daveNYC
I Googled up those names, thin stuff. Better that Elizabeth crush their dreams now, than Brown crush them in November.
BGinCHI
After Martha Coakley’s disastrous run, I think the Globe and others can STFU and let someone who is actually going to make a difference run and win the seat.
What were the consequences of letting Coakley “have her turn” or live up to her “aspirations”?
Fuck that.
We need Senators who work for the people, not Ben Shitbag Nelson.
catclub
slightly off-topic, but concern trolling related:
Did anyone else hear the NPR report on the (1999?, 2000?)
internal treasury report on consequences of having NO treasury bonds if the debt were paid off?
Apparently it was squelched. But now they reported on it.
Judas Escargot
I’m in. Donated to the Lady Professor today. Also ordered a bumper sticker (which I never do).
I’ll let folks know how many contractor trucks with SCOTT BROWN! YEAH! stickers try to run me and my wee Subaru off the road between now and the election.
David in NY
@Judas Escargot: Do they make bumper stickers for bicycles? I’d get one for my grad student son (MIT math) — unless it’s too dangerous to put one on a bike. He’s apt to get run off the road on his commute from Brookline as it is.
Bago
I know it doesn’t need to be repeated, but holy shit, isn’t Jonah Goldberg a tool?
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/10/20/348754/graham-libya-money-to-be-made/
This comes from a sully-link, but goddamn.
TooManyJens
@catclub: Here’s a link to the report:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/10/21/141592124/the-friday-podcast-what-if-we-paid-off-the-debt
I subscribe to Planet Money but haven’t listened to this episode yet.
scav
OT and late to the other AL thread but I’m counting on the BJ puppah exception: Dogs celebrating Diwali in Nepal (Dawgali?)
Judas Escargot
@David in NY:
I couldn’t find any on the campaign site, itself, but I found some on cafepress.
ETA: Some “99%” stickers on there, also. So cafepress certainly accepts her claims about OWS…
catclub
@TooManyJens: thanks!
jsfox
@David in NY: He would probably get more waves of support on that commute than people trying to run him off the road.
TooManyJens
@Bago: I think you may have pasted the wrong link. That one leads to a story about Lindsay Graham being a tool.
me
@Bago: Did you mean this? Yes, he is one doughy tool.
gbear
Elizabeth Warren is going to shred the h8ters without raising a sweat. This is going to be frantic fun.
David in NY
@jsfox:
True. Probably can’t do much better for Warren than Brookline-Cambridge.
Zifnab
The Republicans know how it works. You get in the god-damned line. When its your turn, you can run for office. Not before (unless your last name is “Bush”, in which case you can cut).
Warren needs to know that its not her turn yet. We don’t pick candidates on merit around her. We pick them by seniority. What do you people think this is? A democracy?
Judas Escargot
@me:
It’s only slander when it’s untrue.
When a new party takes the White House, they install a new Cabinet. When a new party takes the Senate or House, they hand off the Committee and Chairman assignments. Ergo, “new government”.
What a disingenuous dumbass.
David
@David in NY: I was at her volunteer strategy event last night in Framingham, and there were close to 500 people who turned out. This on a Tuesday evening, when the invite had only gone out on Friday. The crowd wasn’t college students either, it was a lot of community activists and folks who were signing up to do house parties. I think she’s going to be popular throughout the state.
Poopyman
More happy OWS news:
Oakland cops shoot Iraq vet in head; fractured skull, swollen brain, critical condition
Glad to see the Oakland Police’s public outreach is such a success.
Joel
Setti Warren is about as likely as any other mayor of Newton to win statewide office.
daveNYC
@Poopyman: WTF, did the OPD decide to show the NYPD how to do brutality right?
kerFuFFler
The GOP is clearly desperate to keep her out of office. Their new attack ad which makes her face look all stripey reminds me of a similarly desperate and stripey ad Virgil Goode aired a few years ago to attempt to derail Perriello’s campaign. (Perriello won that election, but has since lost his seat.)
Villago Delenda Est
OT, but here’s another vile sack of shit who needs an immediate tumbrel ride (fair warning…HuffPo link)
Djur
@Poopyman: I seem to remember that the guy who bulked up the Oakland police force is governor of California now.
Amir Khalid
@Villago Delenda Est:
Sounds like a real charmer, this Brian T Monahan. But there’s only one line of business where “You should be more grateful!” is the right response to customer complaints. It’s called religion.
Immanentize
I am a Medford, MA fellow and a big fan (for a number of professional reasons) of Setti Warren. But I am all in for Elizabeth. In fact, I think Setti’s quick drop was both a testament to his difficulty in getting a foothold AND his political savvy in understanding that when a world class candidate happens, you let them. This will help Setti down the line, both in votes and in dollars.
Because right now, my son’s ‘new winter boot fund’ has been spent on Warren. Cold feet, warm heart.
(Also, the “Setti Warren is no relation of Elizabeth” is just speculation, historically, right? /s/)
Morzer
Khazei’s out of the primary, which is a pretty clear indicator that Warren’s going to walk this thing. He was the only one who had anything like a high enough MA profile to be a challenge to her.
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/10/khazei-drops-out-of-ma-sen-race-as-warren-solidifies-hold-on-dem-nod.php?ref=fpb
The Moar You Know
@Poopyman: Shit, in Oakland that’s called “Tuesday”.
I knew OWS would end in violence there. You’ve got all those goddamn rich kids from Marin and the Berkeley hills, who show up at every protest within a hundred miles, calling themselves “anarchists” and running around starting fights and attacking people with their pitbulls. They show up to every goddamned protest in the Bay Area and start beating people, fighting cops, and setting shit on fire. I’d like to think of myself as non-violent but the truth is I’d like to see a bunch of those shitbags marched up in front of a wall and machine-gunned. Not that it would stop them, because they are stupid. But it would make me feel a bit better.
soonergrunt
@daveNYC: flash-bangs should never be used for crowd control.
I don’t know what precipitated OPD rolling on the protest–they say they were getting bottles and debris thrown at them, people in the crowd deny that–but either way, flash-bangs should NEVER be used for crowd/riot control, and pyro of any type, such as flares, CS, or smoke should never be thrown into the crowd.
National Guard train extensively for riot control, and our training is centered on disrupting and dispersing a riot in progress–not civil disobedience–and we would never do that.
When you throw pyro amongst the demonstrators, they panic. Leaving aside the fact that flash bangs can seriously hurt people if they’re too close, panicked people will trample each other, run into the police/NG skirmish line, which results in police/NG use of force that could’ve been avoided. Lastly, pyro that is thrown into the crowd can be picked up and thrown back at you by the more hard core types. This is unpleasant.
The proper use of pyro is immediately behind or in front of the skirmish line, on the flanks, and in the streets and alleys that the RC force wishes to deny to the rioters. The idea is to channel them away from city streets (and the storefronts that can be damaged and looted and cars overturned/burned) and into open areas like parks, from which they can be dispersed (relatively) peacefully.
And that’s the doctrine of the National Guard. We don’t get called out unless all hell is breaking loose, and we still don’t go in with a “kick-ass and take names” attitude.
AA+ Bonds
Hello ladies and gents,
The current Fox News line of attack is that OWS is really ACORN in disguise.
Sounds pretty tired, I know, but it took breathtaking defiance of reality for them to turn ACORN from rented office space and weekend hires to fight inner-city poverty into a vast Red conspiracy.
So I’d look out for this one.
Also,
READ FUCKING FOX FUCKING NEWS EVERY FUCKING DAY
AA+ Bonds
@soonergrunt:
Thanks for this, I am always flabbergasted by the folks (thug-fetishist Republicans) who think that you can lob special bombs into a crowd that somehow aren’t bombs and don’t act like bombs. Same with bullets, and bombs and bullets were both used by the Oakland PD against Americans that night.
I guess it’d be ironic that it’s now the cops lobbing bombs at demonstrating workers in the streets, except when the “opposite” happened back at the beginning of the 20th in the U.S., it was probably either super-corrupt cops or Pinkertons throwing those bombs too.
Immanentize
Soonergrunt,
But that is the problem with police training isn’t it? Always was, wasn’t it? Police are trained for riot control an dthey pull out that playbook whenever they need to control or disperse crowds. The training itself suggests the over-reaction.
AA+ Bonds
@The Moar You Know:
Maybe you should question the things you are told about those horrible awful people and their motives and actions, in the context of police provocateurs. Even most cops aren’t aware of the brass-ordered, federally-supported ratfucking going on in the midst of demonstrations, and you can bet the paid snitches have learned to wear masks and chant slogans.
Hell, as we saw with the museum in Washington, the Kochs and Ailes have started privatizing the business again – a whole new wave of Pinkertons to drum up the fake ‘anarchist’ threat.
soonergrunt
@AA+ Bonds: This is the kind of thing where there isn’t enough training going on, and an attitude of ‘testosterone rules all’ has taken hold. Particularly in organizations that do not have strong top-down controls and rigid ethics. These things don’t happen in organizations that have a culture of ensuring that personnel are held accountable for their actions.
Roger Moore
@soonergrunt:
You’re assuming that the goal was to avoid damage. I get the distinct impression that the OPD was trying to trigger a riot so they would have an excuse to clamp down harder. If that’s they’re goal, they’re doing a (flash) bang-up job.
geg6
Completely OT, but Charlie Pierce is ON FIRE today.
soonergrunt
@Immanentize: Well, I’ll agree that there has to be different training for different circumstances, but my point about the use of pyro and flash-bangs in particular still holds. It should NEVER be thrown/shot in amongst the rioters. It should only be used on the periphery and flanks.
I’m saying that I come from an organizational culture that brings trained snipers with live ammo to riots and we would never do that shit. Anyone who did would be facing charges under Article 92, 93, and 134 of the UCMJ. As a matter of fact, that would be part of the mission brief.
Jenny
Warren seems like a nice person, but I can’t vote for her.
This time I’m gonna stay home and teach the Massachusetts Democratic party a lesson.
BGinCHI
@Jenny: Is that you, Doug?
Mnemosyne
@scav:
Those are some ridiculously friendly-looking police dogs. What’s the threat — “stop or my golden retriever will lick your face off”?
soonergrunt
@Roger Moore: I wouldn’t be surprised.
There’s a psychological dynamic that may be at work here. It involves the attitude that “I’m in charge, so I HAVE to exert my authority.”
It’s triggered when individual cops (and yes, Soldiers too) get too emotionally close to their position and are unable to sympathize/empathize with the people with whom they are dealing. They come to see any failure by the subject to immediately execute instructions as a personal attack.
It’s why the National Guard does not like having police on their flanks when they go into a riot control situation–the cops are already compromised and likely to engage in brutality, where the Guard tend to be more focused on the task at hand and not to overly personalize it. That, of course, can change with time and exposure to the situation. But the dynamic holds that police officers who have recently arrived on scene are less likely to violate the subject’s rights.
Add in that the National Guard tends to rigidly control roles and behavior in those situations–each Soldier has a set responsibility from which he does not deviate, and is closely supervised, where police tend to be more free-wheeling–and we have a much higher Leader/Troop ratio (1 to 4 for us versus 1 to 20 for the cops generally), and only certain personnel are authorized to use pyro or taser in the guard (so everybody and his brother knows who used it) and you have much lower incident rates for civil rights violations/acts of criminal brutality by NG forces than by civilian police in these types of situations, even as the NG only shows up when things have gone completely to shit because only the Governor can call them out.
@Roger Moore: Well, I’m speaking to the doctrine that we would use. Remember that the National Guard can only be activated for civil unrest by the Governor. It’s an inherently political act, for which the Governor will (theoretically) held responsible by the press and the public. Local police don’t have the same issue. I can’t speak intelligently to the motives or intent of the Oakland PD or their officers.
When I say “National Guard in riot control” everybody over the age of thirty immediately thinks of Kent State. Far more people have been killed/maimed by the police in riot control incidents than by the NG since then, but that’s what everybody thinks of. The Guard Bureau learned a lot from Kent State. Local police–not so much.
Roger Moore
@soonergrunt:
I don’t normally like to accuse people of bad motives, but I’m very suspicious of the OPD in this case. The whole event was triggered by OPD clearing the protestors out of their encampment, which seems to have been based on the usual trumped up claims plus a few novel ones. It seems to me that Oakland is at least guilty of handling the situation very badly and more likely of deliberately triggering a confrontation for basically political reasons.
Jenny
The PUMA/Firebag types are waging a jihad against Warren. Warren has really gotten under the “progressive betters” skin. I can only speculate, but given how much the PUMA/Firebag types hate dictator Obama, they probably hate her over her refusal to criticize the evil usurper.
Hell has no fury than that of a sore loser.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/10/elizabeth-warrens-job-plan-war-with-iran.html
Jenny
Morzer
@Jenny:
Yves Smith has been wanking that particular fantasy cock for far too long. She has this bizarre vision of Warren being more effective outside the system – at Harvard. Why yes, Harvard is “outside the system”!
Charley on the MTA
Or Bob Massie, as the case may be. Talk about name recognition …
soonergrunt
@Roger Moore: It wouldn’t surprise me. I’m just saying that individual shit-headedness can be just as effective, if not more so, than conspiratorial shit-headedness. With the individual type, nobody except the individual shit-head knows exactly what’s happening until it’s too late.