Keller @ Large: Elizabeth Warren For Senate?
BOSTON (CBS) - I caught a couple of interviews yesterday with Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard Law School professor who was instrumental in creating the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the agency charged with cracking down on many of the financial sector excesses that helped plunge us into the current economic mess.
Warren is well-spoken and very combative about curbing the worst Wall Street practices, and if the new bureau sees to it that the robber barons never drive us into a ditch like this again, then we can all applaud her efforts and passion.
But now Professor Warren has a decision to make.
Even though there is already a large field of candidates actively seeking the Democratic nomination to challenge Sen. Scott Brown next year, Washington insiders apparently want her to jump in.
She'll hang Wall Street around his neck, one of them claimed yesterday.
Listen to Jon's commentary:
Podcast
Wait a second - didn't Brown vote FOR the Dodd-Frank Consumer Protection Act that created Warren's new bureau?
Yes, he did.
And didn't the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee run all sorts of garish TV ads during the Brown-Coakley race last year claiming Brown was a lapdog of Wall Street?
Yes, they did, and it didn't work.
Could it work this time around?
Maybe, but I doubt it.
I don't hear too many people expressing complete satisfaction with Scott Brown's performance in office so far, a status he shares with every other politician in America.
But I do hear a lot of people, even staunchly liberal Democrats, saying they appreciate his willingness to vote off the party line at times.
Does his overwhelmingly conservative Republican voting record leave him vulnerable here next year?
Of course it does.
But voters elected Brown because they liked him and didn't appreciate being taken for granted by the Democratic establishment here.
Brown can be beaten, no question about it.
He only beat Martha Coakley by five percentage points.
But if the DC powers that be think they can beat Brown with a Harvard professor and a bunch of dubious spin, they may be in for a nasty surprise.
You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.
