vennochi, i'd also like to meet others like myself. theres probably miliions of people like moi, born in oklahoma, overweight, divorced, living day to day out of his wallet selling his beloved newspapers to great people on a street corner in south boston and on top of this whole bouillabaisse having 17 years of sobriety to boot . or wit or whatever and enjoying almost every second of it. btw, ya don't think i could have spelled bouillawhatever all by my lonesome without my ol trusty websters do ya. i'm voting against warren like i voted against coakley for the simple reason that one john kerry type in a state is one too many. ma

Is this what it comes down to ? Who has the better comeback ? Who can deliver the best punch line in the most snide way ? While we focus on who looks best on television, handles themselves well in front of the camera what gets lost and ignored. Elizabeth Warren clearly cares about the little guy, So much so that she was denied the opportunity to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Burea and continue to do so by the financial services industry. I wonder what kind of hand Senator Brown had in that effort.

Perhaps the mayor was right in his assessment of Warren's feable retail political skills. For better or worse, passing the "likable test" is a big part of today's politics. Democrats will play up the president's advantage over Rommney in this regard. And locally they will try to deflect Warren's challenges in the same.

You've got to give this election points for irony. That an opponent of Scott Brown should have to content with a charge of being out of touch! Wow.

what a joke-the reason she stopped claiming NA ancestry in 1996 was because she got life-long tenure at Harvard. she couldn't wring anymore Affirmative Action from acedamia-she had reached her zenith.-what she didn't anticipate was that the liberals thought she would do well against Brown. unfortunately this led to others (those nasty anti-feminists/conservatives)to look at her record.--they can't look at her job interviews or applications because she won't release any of them. Harvard supposedly has a Code of Conduct-I can well imagine what a professor would do to a student who lied or used un-cited material. that could be construed as plagarism. However; to knowingly use a minority status to gain unfair advantage in hiring is FRAUD. All she has to do is release her financial aid statements/scholarships etc. and her job resume/applcations to see if she used minority status to gain advantage. this was a two-fer for PC Harvard Law-a woman and a minority.

Joan's commentary here reflects a little desperation. While I think the whole minority glitch was more symptomatic of Harvard and society's obsession with the "non-white", she was very weak to play into it. It reveals much about her character, and that is a big turn off for voters. There is a longing among the left wing elite to be something other than a white American. Many of us find this offensive. NEW PARAGRAPH: This same thing will hurt President Obama in the fall, as his new biography depicts him, as a young man in New York, of affiliating with Pakistani and other foreigners, enjoying the role of being an outsider to American culture. It is a liberal ethic, to seek a non American identity. Again, mainstream voters take great offense to this.

"Not handling it well", the comment appears in every article about this non-issue - plant a seed and watch it grow. Since when is it a problem or unusual for a person to have an interest in her heritage. Or to claim a connection with something that makes one stand out. I don't know what factors were part of Harvard's decision to hire Elizabeth Warren. I'm sure it was a combination of many things - as it is any time someone is selected for any job. If Harvard was wanting a poster child for diversity, I think a bright, articulate, female, mid-western, non-Harvard individual who - if my observations are accurate - has the demeanor and delivery of a born teacher might have seemed more important than Warren's high cheekbones.

Has the Globe given this the same coverage it would have if it was Brown ws being questioned? Of course not.

What I haven't seen addressed in all this controversy is her response that she was hired for her teaching talent and not her Native American heritage. This is the double standard faced by so many African-American, Hispanic, and other minorities when hired at universities and other professional positions. It is ironic Warren is facing the same skepticism.

So, it's no big deal that she presented herself in a job interview as Native American when she's only 3% so? I think it's misleading and opportunistic and belittles the struggle of true Native Americans. Why did she do it? To meet people like herself? What, other lying exaggerators who are non American wannabes? There's probably plenty of them at Harvard but it is not the stuff of Senators, at least not to me. Anyone who sees it differently is just not being truthful with themselves and knows it.

Er, that should read non white American Wannabe.

Prof Warren was in her 40s when she took the tenured position at Harvard. Therefore there is a past history to put this in context. Maybe out of laziness or to denigrate her at any cost, the facts be damned(a la by Sen "I saw the pictures" Brown) the opposition to Prof Warren speaks loudly about their vision for this country. And it isn't pretty. They leap frog over a candidate's significant accomplishments to fashion a smear that probably is not true and belongs more to the tenor of distant times rather than relevant issues of contemporary America. What is so culturally attractive to yesteryear for these folks? It seems they want to return to a patriarchal America with limited liberties for large swaths of citizens. Oh well again for the record. Prof Warren taught at many universities. At 2 she was on a tenure track and was tenured at the Univ of Pa. She was offered a tenured position at Harvard but refused it to deal with family issues. One year later she was offered the professorship again and accepted. This is not the scenario of someone using her background to get ahead. She was already in front of the pack by dint of her research, publications, and superb teaching(at least all her students thought so). Sen Brown is demonstrating how far down in the gutter he is willing to go to win. He probably would have let his Super Pacs do this but now he is hamstrung by his agreement not to do so.

I have never understood what value this particular "dust up" is to the average voter in determining who to vote for. But then the individual voter seldom looks at issues they tend to vote like it were the Oscars as opposed to a policy question. What's the tabloids say today. I hear the noise, It's a character issue. Really? From a working history with politicians they are all characters.

Why would the most qualified candidate to represent this state get out of the race? I can only guess it is wishful thinking on your part since her chances of winning against Sen "I saw the pictures" Brown are real.

Wow what venom. This is an election not one enemy against another. You have zero evidence for what you written so it can be dismissed without a reply. It bespeaks of some kind of doom that maybe you could explain a little better. What do you really know?

My friend, most people see it differently. What concerns them most is her retort did not have enough of a powerful message as if she was suppose to give her version of Lincoln's Second Inaugural. We'll see how things hold up once she is in the arena with Sen "I saw the pictures" Brown. By the way she won "the best h.s. debater award in Oklahoma." In other words you haven't seen anything yet. She has done plenty on her own merits to be a sterling candidate to represent this state and the nation. She hasn't even gotten the Democratic nomination for US Senate yet. That is the first order of business and if elected she will go toe to toe with Sen "hubba hubba" Brown. Keep tuned.

And you believe Rovian opposition research didn't bring this, yes, non issue to light. Eric Fehrnstrom, his campaign manager, is a former Herald reporter. Hmmmmm. Your vitriol against a respected teacher and without a shred of evidence says more about you than Prof Warren. Without more substantial evidence on your part it is all "sound and fury signifying nothing." By the way any comments on Sen Brown using tax payer funds to make a political ad by staging his basketball prowess at a constituency not political event? Somehow some 10 year old out of context incident gets your bile more than a political junket to his own state no less. Airplane rides for him and his staff were paid by the taxpayer to meet his fellow citizens. It is not supposed to be used to make a campaign ad.

I read your comment carefully. Your intimate knowledge of "professor" Warren's background is a amazing. Who are you? A relative? I am not a liar. My neighbors are an active duty Air Force family. The airman is married to a lovely young woman born and raised on a reservation located in New Mexico. Her mother still lives there. While they have no interest in politics, their reaction to "high cheek bones" seemed to them to be a negative reference to their heritage that may have appeared in some turn of the century description of them. Your implication that this is a fabrication used to denigrate Ms Warren is false. It seemed to them a libel to their heritage for a wonderfully gifted, intelligent woman to try to link herself to them in such a obvious use of a stereotypical reference to their physical appearance.

Brown needs to avoid talking about his record-- and its working. Voters! Media! Grow up please and lets talk about what these candidates stand for! Brown likes corporations and big banks. Warren is fighting for fairness for you and me. It's really a pretty easy choice.

"It's not important. It's not what she stands for," said Marie Sinclair, 70, an independent voter, who connects with Warren's economic message. A candidate can "stand" for whatever perspectives yesterday's polls tell her today be. This issue is important because it defines who Warren is...what type of person, which is far more permanent (and important) that what she says she stands for today...or last year... or next year. She thinks lying to get ahead is OK, that her ambitions and needs justify abuse of our legal system and culture, that the ends justify the means. That's what we know...you want to put a person like that in a position of great power?

The problem is that people who use minority status to gain a position, chose to cloud that they were in fact qualified for the position. I man if you are in fact well qualified...why claim to be indian american? If you are the only "indian american" candidate and you are hired, were you hired because you were well qualified..maybe not. Would the people who hired you, if they hired you solely because you were a minority, ever admit that? Not a chance. So if you want to be respected for yourself and your achievements, don't claim special treatment...especially if its not due.

Only in America can an educated woman who is a proven consumer advocate, unloved by big business, be considered "out of touch." And this because she'd running against a man who gave up his soul to a business lobbyist, Norquist. And voted to give the most profitable companies on earth tax breaks, picked this momewnt in time to double student loan rates, quit the National Gaurd and then re-joined when he got into politics(for more money and rank). In America apparantly it's a crime to say you have indian blood because you don't have enough indian blood, to be intelligent and educated. She did not have to persuade anyone to gain admission to Harvard, she was recruited for ability. Brown's method is to throw enough c--p at the wall so some of it sticks. Unfortunately, this works well when dealing with voters who rely on sound bites for political opinion but know the sports stats since WW2.