Quotes of the day

Video emerged on Tuesday showing supporters of Senator Scott P. Brown making tomahawk gestures with their arms and yelling Indian war whoops at supporters of Elizabeth Warren, his Democratic challenger, outside a pub on Saturday. The gestures were meant to mock Ms. Warren’s assertions, for which she has offered no documentation, that she has Native American ancestry.

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When reporters asked Mr. Brown about the gestures, he said he did not condone such behavior. But, he added, “the real offense here was that Professor Warren checked the box,” indicating that she was Native American, and “claimed something she wasn’t entitled to.” The issue, he said, “goes to her character.”

While she claims to be representing “the little guy,” Mr. Brown says, she was actually a “hired gun” for Travelers Insurance against victims of asbestos poisoning and for the LTV Steel Company when it was trying to avoid paying health benefits for its retirees. She earned $350,000 in one year at Harvard, he says, while teaching only one course.

And in what has become perhaps the signature issue of the campaign, Mr. Brown says she “falsely” claimed to be a Native American, “a person of color,” when she applied for law school teaching jobs in the 1980s and ’90s, and “took advantage of a status that was only entitled to people of true need.”

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Elizabeth Warren stood beside asbestos union workers Tuesday and accused Senator Scott Brown of running a distraction campaign, hours after the senator said that she served as a “hired gun” for two corporate clients.

“I’m not opposed to people making a living and representing businesses,” Brown, a Republican, told reporters in front of South Station. “But when you’re out there saying, by the way I’m representing the little guy and the middle class and in fact, we find out that’s not true, that’s an issue. That’s an issue of honesty and character.”…

“He will talk about anything not to have to talk about his own voting record,” Warren said.

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Joan Hoffman, a Brown supporter from Boston, points out that Warren aired the first attack ad in this race.

“If he continues to play the good guy, and she keeps throwing these barbs at him, he’s gonna show a sign of weakness,” says Hoffman. “He does have to defend himself.”

Still, if Brown continues to launch personal attacks against Warren for the next six weeks, voters may not be so forgiving. Especially in a race where both candidates signed what they called the “People’s Pledge” to keep often vicious, third-party ads out. Earlier this year, Brown boasted that the race was “serving as a model for the rest of the nation.”

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Incumbent Republican Scott Brown and his Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren remain tied in the U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Massachusetts Voters finds Brown and Warren each picking up 48% of the vote. One percent (1%) prefers some other candidate, while three percent (3%) are undecided.

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Via Legal Insurrection.

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