(ActBlue donation page here.)
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Greg Sargent’s take, from his Washington Post Plum Line blog:
Elizabeth Warren’s campaign is up with its first ad of the cycle — a direct response to Crossroads GPS’s ad attacking her for embracing Occupy Wall Street. It’s now clear that Warren will be the number one target for an emerging national conservative strategy: Seizing on the protests to tar Dems as culturally out of touch with struggling blue collar whites and moderates, and to discredit Dem policies designed to address inequality by depicting them as radical and out of the mainstream…
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Warren and her advisers recognize the political danger of getting drawn into an all or nothing choice between fully embracing the protests or repudiating them. Instead, as this ad indicates, Warren intends to keep the focus on the broader argument set in motion by the protests — over inequality, excessive Wall Street influence and lack of Wall Street accountability — and on the fact that anxiety and anger over these problems are mainstream public sentiments that go far beyond the diehards camped out in tents.
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Indeed, it’s worth asking whether the attacks on Warren constitute a bit of overreach: As Sam Stein notes, her campaign has already brought in over $300,00 in fundraising off the Crossroads attack, and will likely bring in much more.
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Bottom line: While Warren does seem to be treading a bit carefully when it comes to the protests’ excesses, it’s clear that the attacks aren’t softening the populist rationale of her candidacy at all. They are doing nothing to distract her campaign from keeping the focus exactly where it belongs: On Wall Street.
Thanks to Mr. Sargent, also, for the link with Ari Berman explaining to Keith Olbermann how Karl Rove’s attack ad has been a fund-raising bonanza for Elizabeth Warren’s campaign.
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At least one person with a deep personal interest in Warren’s campaign is scrambling to prop up his pro-consumer credentials. From Bobby Caina Calvan at the Boston Globe‘s Political Intelligence blog:
Senator Scott Brown today endorsed the nomination of Richard Cordray, the former Ohio attorney general, to lead the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — whose chief architect, Elizabeth Warren, is challenging Brown in his reelection bid next fall.
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Cordray’s nomination is being fiercely opposed by Senate Republicans, 44 of whom signed a letter to President Obama in May expressing their concerns that there is too little oversight over the new agency, which would help police the country’s financial institutions.
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Brown, who bucked his party in supporting the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act that created the consumer bureau in 2010, did not sign the letter and said today that he would support the nomination…
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Brown’s announcement today doesn’t necessarily advance the nomination. The bloc of 44 Republican senators would be enough to sustain a filibuster against the confirmation, and it is unclear whether any other GOP senators could be swayed to drop their opposition…
Raven
YES! You can use Paypal!!!!
JPL
Warren is one senator that I plan on supporting. As Raven knows there’s not a lot of candidates to donate to in GA.
harlana
she’s just so damned cute
WereBear
I am happy to say that Elizabeth Warren is far more likely to be both outspoken and articulate on this subject.
As I like to say during political arguments:
For the luvapumpkincheesecake, the Republicans have had forty years for their policies to work! When are they going to kick in?
fourmorewars
Love hearing whatever Prof. Warren has to say.
That doesn’t mean part of me wasn’t hoping it was the ‘other’ Elizabeth Warren. Hope she’s not done making ads, either. :)
RosiesDad
I love this woman. Lord knows there are scant few to admire in politics but she is one of the good guys.
Her campaign gets $25/month from me via Act Blue until Election Day.
bin Lurkin'
@WereBear:
Clapping, we aren’t doing it loud enough.
JGabriel
Anne Laurie:
I predicted that the Crossroads attack ad would help Warren more than it would hurt her way back when it first aired. Unexpectedly, part of the problem for the GOP is that their own attack ad amplifies Warren’s campaign theme: there’s a class war and she will fight for you.
It’s amazingly tone deaf on the GOP’s part.
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Jay C
So this is the brilliant new Republican strategy for 2012?
IOW, hippie-punching? Again? Jeez, it’s always 1968 for these clowns, isn’t it? Don’t they have even the faintest hint of a clue that in 2011, “blue collar whites and moderates” are, if not actually out there marching with OWS, way more sympathetic to them than to the Republican plutocrats who are paying for Karl Rove’s asshole ads?
Ben Cisco
@Jay C: Yes, yes, and no.
Judas Escargot
@Jay C:
IMO, they seem to be banking on the ‘Silent Majority’ being on their side… and given the past 40+ years, they do have some reason to believe that. Even the WI special elections a few months ago were closer than most decent people thought they should be.
One problem with the Silent Majority: You never know what they were really thinking until the morning after the votes are counted.
I’m still hoping that the GOP is using 1960s tactics with 1980s rhetoric to fight a 1930s war, and won’t figure that out until it’s too late.
e_anders
I have never given to a non-presidential out of state candidate before. Warren is something special. Green given to her is well spent. I hope she has her sights set on the white house in ’16.
Liberty60
During a blog argument about health care reform, someone told me “you liberals always act like it’s 1932”.
Funny thing, though, it IS 1932- the big issues are the existance of a social safety net, bank regulation, and the right of workers to bargain collectively.
All the pillars of the New Deal- progressive taxation, social safety net, labor rights, banking regulation- are being questioned.
Not trimmed, not modified, but their very existance being questioned.
So yeah, it is 1932 whether we like it or not.