Live Blog: Elizabeth Warren vs. Scott Brown, Massachusetts Senate Debate, Round 2

Good Evening!! The second debate between Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown will take place tonight from 7-8PM at the Tsongas Center at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. There will be a live audience of more than 5,000 people. Unfortunately, the debated will be moderated by Dancin’ Dave Gregory.

The debate will air live on C-span and will be live streamed at a number of sites, including C-Span and Mass Live.

Mass Live sees audience reaction as one of the five things to watch for in the debate. The first debate was held in a studio without a live audience. How will that affect the debaters? The audience will be told not to react, but they probably will anyway. The other four things to watch for (supposedly) are (commentary is mine):

(1) How will the candidates deal with the endless, boring Native American “issue”? Will Brown continue to claim he can psychically determine another person’s ethnic heritage? Will Warren find a way to smack him down for good? Maybe she should try raising her voice.

(2) “Brown’s perceived aggressiveness”: He has been criticized quite a bit for his boorish behavior in the first debate, but will he tone it down? I’m betting no, because he just can’t stand losing to a girl.

(3) Will Dancin’ Dave allow any actual issues to be addressed, like maybe foreign policy? I sure hope so, because I think it would be a hoot to see Brown try to talk about something complex and still make sense. And maybe he’ll tell us more about those meetings with kings and queens and how he talks to Hillary Clinton on the phone all the time.

(4) The last “issue” is Scott Brown’s trumped-up attacks on Warren for doing legal work for some corporations, including Travelers’ Insurance. Brown has demanded that Warren release the names of all the clients she has worked for. But Brown refuses to release his client list, because he’s a man and Warren is just some female who is inexplicably trying to take his Senate seat away.

I’ll add one more thing to watch for: Will Warren explicitly tie Brown to Mitt Romney and the Republican Party? In the last debate, she repeatedly said that she supports President Obama but she didn’t confront Brown on whom he is supporting. She needs to do that, repeatedly and explicitly.

The latest polls by The Boston Globe and Boston University’s NPR station WBUR both show Warren still ahead of Scott Brown by 43-38 and 46-44 respectively.

Just a couple of links on the Native American “controversy.” The Washington Post did a fact check last week in which they found Scott Brown guilty of two Pinocchios. Only two?

Brown said that Warren “checked the box claiming she was Native American” when she applied to Harvard and Penn, suggesting the Democratic candidate somehow gained an unfair advantage because of an iffy ethnic background. But there is no proof that she ever marked a form to tell the schools about her heritage, nor is there any public evidence that the universities knew about her lineage before hiring her.

The senator’s debate comments also suggest Warren actively applied for positions with Harvard and Penn, but the evidence suggests the schools recruited her because of her groundbreaking research and writings on bankruptcy. Harvard, in fact, did not give up on her after she first turned down a tenured position with the university.

Some might assume that Warren listed herself as a minority in the law school directories to attract offers from top schools, which would be a pro-active measure. The explanation that she was reaching out to other Native Americans — when she was merely listed as a “minority” — certainly appears suspicious, but there is no conclusive evidence that she used her status in the listing to land a job.

But Warren appears to have been well-qualified for the teaching positions and excelled once she was hired.

Gee, no kidding. I think the problem Brown is having is that Warren is far more intelligent, educated, and professionally accomplished than he is. But she’s a girl! So it doesn’t count.

Today the WaPo published an article on Why the Native American heritage fight isn’t hurting Elizabeth Warren. Because it’s idiotic? The article doesn’t really answer the question in the headline–just provides poll results that demonstrate that Massachusetts voters aren’t a moronic as Scott Brown.

A Boston Globe poll released Sunday showed Warren leading Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) 43 percent to 38 percent. A deeper dive into the survey’s crosstabs reveals that most voters aren’t swayed by the tussle over Warren’s ancestry….

More than eight-in-ten likely voters (86 percent) have at least some familiarity with the Native American heritage story. Of those with at least some knowledge of it, about seven in ten (71 percent) said the story would have no impact on their vote for Warren, while 24 percent said it would make them less likely to vote for the Democratic nominee.

Among voters who are undecided about whether they support Brown or Warren – a crucial subset of the electorate — nearly three-in-four (74 percent) said the story would have no impact on their vote for Warren, while nearly one-in-five (19 percent) said it would make them less likely to vote for her.

It is that 19 percent of voters that Brown is playing for.

Boston Mayor Tom Menino has released a video ad supporting Elizabeth Warren. Menino isn’t much of a public speaker, but he controls a powerful political machine.

I hope at least some Sky Dancers will be watching the debate. I won’t be able to comment for the first half, but I’ll be watching on C-span and will join in for the second half. Please give your reactions in the comments if you’re watching! The results of this race will affect all of us, whether we live in Massachusetts or not.