Elizabeth Warren run for Senate
By passing over Elizabeth Warren as head of a new consumer financial protection agency, President Barack Obama has freed the Harvard Law professor to possibly run against U.S. Sen. Scott Brown.
Liberals were hoping Obama would stick by Warren and appoint her to run the consumer protection agency she proposed and helped create, but now they are dreaming of the Cambridge resident as their ideal candidate to take on Brown, R-Mass.
The advocacy group BoldProgessives.org launched a petition drive Monday to draft her to run, while others said she would be a welcome addition to the race.
“I would love it if she were interested in joining the race” – Massachusetts Democratic Party Chairman John Walsh said. “I would talk to her and encourage her in a heartbeat.”
Warren has not said whether she would run, and Republicans do not sound worried that she might. Brown has positive ratings from voters in polls, has raised more than $9 million for his re-election bid, and so far is being challenged by a group of relatively unknown Democrats.
“It’s pretty clear that national Democrats are unhappy with the current field, but I’m not sure a liberal Harvard professor from Oklahoma who has never run for office before is the answer” – Republican spokesman Tim Buckley said.
“The real problem for Democrats is that Scott Brown is doing a good job, people like him and he’s focused on what they care about – jobs and the economy” – Buckley said.
- Elizabeth Warren.
Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard Law School professor whose consumer protection work has made her a favorite among liberal activists, will spend early August assessing whether to try to unseat Senator Scott Brown, an adviser said.
Warren will return to Massachusetts to ponder her political future after President Obama’s decision not to select her as head of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She will spend a few weeks winding down her role in Washington and on a trip with her grandchildren, and then focus on what’s next – according to the adviser.
National liberal activists believe Warren would be able to raise the necessary money and make the strongest case among Democrats seeking to challenge Brown. The adviser spoke on the condition of anonymity because Warren’s plans are emerging.
The White House has said she will return to her teaching job at Harvard, but has not said whether a potential Senate run could interfere with those plans.
Warren told MSNBC yester day that she plans to take her grandchildren to Legoland and then return to Massachusetts.
“Massachusetts does beckon in the sense that it’s my home and I need to go home” – she said. “I’ll do more thinking then, but I need to do that thinking not from Washington; I need to go home.”
Her plans are being closely watched by state and national Democrats, who have yet to coalesce around a candidate. The declared candidates, with the exception of Alan Khazei, are having trouble raising money.
President Barack Obama may have cleared the way for a new entrant into the Democratic field lining up to challenge Sen. Scott Brown in the Republican’s re-election bid next year, by choosing someone other than consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren to run the new national Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Ms. Warren – a Harvard University professor who held a position overseeing the national TARP bank bailout program and more recently helped create the federal consumer protection agency – has been encouraged to enter the race by many state and national Democratic leaders.
While Ms. Warren had been considered a lead candidate to head up that new agency, the president instead chose Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray for the post, leaving Ms. Warren available to run for the Senate.
In her first interview since the president’s decision, which aired yesterday on MSNBC, Ms. Warren indicated she is going to seriously consider a challenge to Mr. Brown who is serving the three years left of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy’s last term in office.
Ms. Warren said she is returning home to Massachusetts to recharge after her work setting up the consumer agency and planned to spend some time with her grandson. “I need to do more thinking” – before making a decision on the Senate race, she said.
She is among several prominent Democrats weighing the Senate race, which has four announced, but lesser known, candidates. Also believed to be considering entering the race are U.S. Reps. Michael Capuano, D-Somerville, and Stephen Lynch, D-Boston.