Critical Mass.: Elizabeth Warren Vs. Scott Brown

Time out from Florida. Time out from Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, and the months-long question that frames the GOP primary: Which clown will be the last one driving the car?

We turn to a different race, the critical Massachusetts Senate race of incumbent Republican Scott Brown against Elizabeth Warren, middle-class advocate and co-creator of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Not to up the ante too much, but the fate of America might hinge on this race.

It’s an odds-on favorite that the Republicans will hang onto the House of Representatives, and will probably pick up a few seats in the Senate, even if the President does win re-election. Most of the Senate seats that are toss-ups this election cycle include 6 Democratic incumbents and just 2 Republicans. Currently the Senate is 53-47 Democratic. Lose a net four seats and the Republicans hold the Senate.

Republican leader Grover Norquist has as much as promised impeachment hearings against the president, should Mr. Obama win re-election and the GOP controls the House and the Senate. (Yes, impeachment is an opposition tool, apparently, as it had been during Bill Clinton’s presidency. We wish the Democrats had remembered that during the George W. Bush years.) The Massachusetts race could very well be key in hanging onto the Senate for the Dems, and thwarting any attempt by the Republicans to play their impeachment games.

Scott Brown is a smart and charismatic Republican, such a rarity these days in the GOP that we really can’t think of anybody to compare him with. A former model and Cosmopolitan centerfold, he knows how to carry himself in the visual medium that is modern politicking. He’s laconic and attempts to straddle the political fence, hard to do for a Republican in Massachusetts. We saw the word "independent" quite a few times on his campaign website, but rarely saw the word "Republican." To paraphrase one of his best-known quotes, "People in the Republican Party vote for me, people in the Democratic Party vote for me...hell, people who just like to party vote for me." Cute.

Warren can beat him. She’s polling well, slightly ahead in a December poll, and she seems intent on running a serious, take-no-chances campaign, something her predecessor in the 2010 special election to fill the late Ted Kennedy’s seat failed to do. General consensus on Martha Coakley’s campaign for the Dems range from, She phoned it in, to Worst Senate campaign ever.

To reiterate, this is a key match-up, and we offer a link to a Daily Show interview on Ms. Warren’s campaign website:

http://elizabethwarren.com/dailyshow?sc=tw

We will follow this race closely, and other key House and Senate races.

We will return to Florida anon, where the campaigns and their helmsmen continue to beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.