Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Even the Globe Gets Warren

Put snide aside. Brian McGrory was awake and sharp when almost-candidate for U.S. Senate Elizabeth Warren spoke with the Globe. His piece is as insightful as any I've seen. You should read it...all the way through...to know what to expect if she announces a run just after Labor Day.

In particular, he focuses on differences that would surely come with such a campaign, such as:
  • She far prefers to fight for what she believes in rather than compromise it all away.
  • When she is asked a question, any question, she looks the person in the eye and answers it.
  • "I came from an America that created opportunities for people like me, and I now see an America where the government works for people who already have money and power."
With those, you know that she'll be relentlessly candid rather than smarmily calculating. You know as I heard in a listening meeting that she deals with ideas first and with problem/solution pairs right after. She is eager to put forward her ideas instead of mealy mouthing. It's a level of courage we rarely see in candidates or elected officials.

All of that out there, what will she make of her residency silliness? I have been reading double-damned comments already. She has been here and at Harvard for 17 years; ergo, she's one of those dreadful Cambridge elitists. She has been here for only 17 years; so, she's not one of us and never will be. Chicken lips, I say. Let the long-time MA resident raised in OK put her powerful ideas out there for both serious and trivial criticism.

She can take it. She can dish it out. She'll kick up the level of debate several notches. It's going to be a bumpy night.

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