Warren: 'What Does He Think It Takes For A Woman To Be Qualified?'
BOSTON (CBS) - "I am very proud of my heritage," said U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren Wednesday, amid another barrage of questions about her claim of Native-American ancestry.
But in an exclusive interview with WBZ-TV, Warren was quick to turn the heat up on incumbent Sen. Scott Brown, scorching him for the millions in campaign donations he's raised from the financial industry.
"Scott Brown has been named by Forbes magazine as one of Wall Street's favorite senators," notes Warren. "That's not an award I'm likely to get."
Instead, Warren is touting her ties with President Obama in a new TV ad featuring a Rose Garden testimonial from the president, who says of Warren: "She's a janitor's daughter who has become one of the country's fiercest advocates for the middle class."
Says Warren: "I want them to see that I've been out there working with the president on behalf of America's families."
It's a compliment Warren wants to turn into a weapon against Brown, citing in the WBZ interview his vote against the so-called Buffett Rule, a tax hike on high-income earners.
"Every time Scott Brown votes to protect the millionaires and the billionaires, that's more that has to get picked up by America's working families," she says.
On a day when Brown was touting his "bipartisanship," Warren dismissed a recent analysis by a Washington newspaper that found Brown votes with the Democrats nearly half of the time.
"The real question is whose side do you stand on? Scott Brown supports big Wall Street banks that are headed by both Democrats and Republicans. That's his form of bipartisanship."
And in another sign of heightened campaign aggressiveness, Warren played the gender card when pressed about whether her partial Native-American ancestry had been a factor in her rise as an academic
"Scott Brown's campaign has been sending e-mails to reporters asking them to ask me if I'm qualified for my job. And all I can say is I busted my tail as a teacher, I am qualified for my job," she said, adding that Brown had questioned the qualifications of then-Solicitor General Elena Kagan before voting against her confirmation as a Supreme Court justice.
"If we're gonna ask questions about qualifications," said Warren, "maybe the appropriate person to ask those questions of is Scott Brown. What does he think it takes for a woman to be qualified?"
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