Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) just might have a formidable opponent next year in former Harvard professor and progressive heartthrob Elizabeth Warren. And it looks like he’s starting to get nervous about it.
On the heels of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee’s $100,000 campaign cash haul on Warren’s behalf, Brown’s up with a new fundraising appeal begging supporters to help him before it’s too late.
“Help Scott fight back,” the fundraising appeal implores. Brown Finance Director John Cook lays out the stakes:
The Democratic political establishment is going to pull out all the stops next year, doing whatever it takes to win back a seat that they think belongs to them by right but which we know actually belongs to the people. They are so obsessed with winning this seat back that Washington elitists are trying to push aside local Democrat candidates in favor of Professor Warren from Oklahoma.
Republicans have been eager to remind people of Warren’s birthplace since talk of her running for Senate first came up. She’s lived in Massachusetts for nearly two decades.
For now, she’s not an official candidate, though there are growing signs that she may be soon. Roll Call reports Warren is “attending house parties in the Boston area,” and “began reaching out to grass-roots Bay State activists last week.”
That would be a shot in the arm for progressives, who are chomping at the bit to help Warren win the seat that was occupied by Sen. Ted Kennedy (D) until he died in 2009. Brown won the seat in a special election on a wave of tea party outrage, and has been shoring up his support in the blue Bay State ever since. Polls show it’s been working, with Brown showing more than decent approval ratings.
He’s been raising plenty of money, too, building a campaign war chest approaching $10 million.
But Warren’s supporters say she’s got the goods to defeat Brown. And they’re not moved by Brown’s fundraising successes, a large chunk of which comes from the financial sector.
“Scott Brown’s ‘grassroots’ fundraising email is hilarious, given that his core financial support comes from Wall Street and other big corporations who own his vote,” PCCC spokesperson Neil Sroka said. “The genuine grassroots uprising for Elizabeth Warren is testament to how hungry Massachusetts voters are for someone who will fight for them.”
The PCCC is keeping its draft Warren site up and running, and it appears that its success is starting to make people antsy over at Team Brown.
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