Quincy city councilor, attorney vie to be Republican challenger to Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren
QUINCY - Quincy City Council President Ian Cain is the second Republican to seek his party's nomination to run against Sen. Elizabeth Warren this fall.
"I'm running to usher in the next generation of leadership, where leaders focus on embracing the innovation economy and the new digital world," Cain said in a video release.
What's the difference between Deaton and Cain?
He joins Swansea attorney John Deaton in the field, who told WBZ-TV in his first Boston TV interview that he's running "because the country's in crisis, illegal immigration, debt crisis, opioid crisis." Deaton, who found fame defending the crypto industry, says Warren should be fired for poor performance. "She's been at the Senate for almost 12 years, and in those twelve years, as primary sponsor, she's had 350-plus bills; only one has passed as primary sponsor. Anyone else in the Commonwealth gets fired with that level of productivity," he said.
Both Deaton and Cain, who also promotes crypto as a wave of the future, offer similar indictments, claiming Warren's been too busy with political posturing and partisanship to do the job properly. But her push to toughen crypto regulation will offer voters a clear contrast.
"Crypto has to follow the same rules as every other financial transaction in order not to be used by the terrorists, the drug traffickers and the crypto criminals," Warren told WBZ-TV in an interview last year after co-sponsoring a bipartisan bill toughening crypto regulation.
"I oppose that bill because that's a de facto ban on self-custody of bitcoin and crypto," Deaton said.
He's running as a Republican, but Deaton said it's his refusal to vote for Donald Trump - and the non-partisanship that represents - that draws the sharpest contrast with Warren. "Loyalty. Loyalty to the country. Loyalty to the Commonwealth. Not loyalty to a party. That's what's gonna separate us," he said.
What are the chances a Republican can unseat Warren?
To say these two, if they make the primary ballot, face an uphill battle against Warren is a big understatement.
Even if they were well-known figures with a significant political base to start with, a presidential election year that will bring out scores of Democrats to vote against Trump might be the worst possible setting for a longshot challenge.
Still, Warren is at times a polarizing figure, and the willingness of these candidates to step forward means a third term won't be handed to her by default.