Evidently, while it's a close race Elizabeth Warren has been struggling in Massachusetts. There's concern that she hasn't put out very good ads.
"Warren took the first shot this week with a spot criticizing Brown for “siding with the big money guys” — mild by negative ad standards, but a departure still. The ad may well be a sign of a distinctly harsher tone to come."
"Warren acted under acute pressure from Democratic leaders — in Washington and Massachusetts — who are fretting that one of their best Senate pickup opportunities could be slipping away.Their anxiety is well-founded."
"The latest public poll had Warren down by only a point, but recent surveys shows her trailing by double digits among critical independent voters. And Brown, a rare Republican in Congress who bucks his party at times, is peeling away as many as one in five Democrats."
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/81247.html#ixzz26YMkowur
I can't speak for her ads as I haven't seen them. I used to live in Massachusetts but have been back in the old country-NY-since 2009. No question though that it's a bad sign if 20% of Democrats are supporting Brown.
Many harsh things have been said about her ads. She certainly gave a strong speech in Charlotte and indeed, she was trailing by as much as 5 points prior to her speech and there's a sense she may have gotten a bounce. Still it sounds like Chuck Schumer knows what he's talking about:
"Enter New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the messaging chief for Senate Democrats. He personally urged Warren to take a tougher line against Brown, as did Guy Cecil, the executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, according to sources familiar with the talks. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid shared those concerns, sources said."
"The consumer advocate’s earlier ads showed her looking straight into the camera, lamenting the country’s failure to create public infrastructure jobs and promote women’s rights."
“Preachy, professorial and petulant” was how some strategists in her own party described the Harvard Law professor’s dozen ads since November."
"One Massachusetts Democrat, who would speak only on condition of anonymity, said the discontent over Warren’s media strategy boiled over at delegate meetings at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte."
“The repeated refrain was, ‘The ads suck,’” quipped the Democrat.
"Message received. Warren’s commercial this week features a boxing trainer with a thick Boston accent praising Warren as a “real fighter” and knocking Brown as a tool of “big corporations” and backer of tax cuts for the wealthy."
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/81247.html#ixzz26YNkJcmE
"No doubt what she has to do-and has started to as far as I can tell-is make the point that a vote for Brown is a vote for Mitch McConnell, Mitt Romney, and Paul Ryan.
"While Warren has attacked Brown as a partisan in her stump speeches, Democrats say she needs to make that same case in TV ads to voters who may just be tuning in to the race."
"The idea is to undercut Brown’s image as an independent, go-his-own-way Republican. Top Democrats and party officials say Warren’s tougher ad campaign against Brown is aimed at voters who are likely to vote for President Barack Obama but remain unsure about the Senate race."
“I’ve never seen him give us a vote when we really needed it,” Schumer said of Brown. “He’ll always give us a vote when the votes are 62-38 or even 55-45. But he never gives us a vote.”
Schumer is dead on here. It's vital that these Democrats that vote Brown realize what they're really doing. The idea to "vote for the idea" or "vote for the man" not the party has a nice sound to it, but it's an illusion.
I love to quote the great Radical Republican Thaddeus Stevens who said: Principles indeed! Betray your principles and vote for your party!
It's tongue in cheek, but in truth if you support ideas you have to vote for the party that supports these ideas. This is actually today much more true than in the past. There was a time when there were may moderate and liberal, Northeaster-"Rockefller" Republicans who often voted with liberal Democrats-while the Southern Democrats voted with the GOP. However, today this is not reality anymore.
What does it help if Brown only votes with Democrats when the vote is not in doubt? When it's a tough party line vote he votes GOP. Brown did make this point well after the Akin scandal broke. She pointed out that while he claims he's prochoice-and made a point of criticizing the Republicans for their extremist anti-abortion platform-he in fact was been praised by prolife groups for voting with them 80% of the time.
The reality is that if you support a woman's right to choose you vote Democrat. If you oppose it you vote Republican. Full stop.
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