Scott Brown blasts media over Elizabeth Warren coverage
Updated: 2:10 p.m. ET
Republican Senator Scott Brown on Wednesday took the media to task for allegedly being too easy on his Democratic Senate opponent Elizabeth Warren, imploring a reporter to "ask her some tough questions, too."
Brown, in an interview with the Boston Herald, accused the media of being harder on him than on his liberal opponent, a Harvard Law professor and longtime consumer advocate.
"It's all fluff. It's all fluff. Gimme a break," said Brown, about the press treatment of Warren. "I just think that if you're going to find out where people stand, you gotta ask them tough questions like you guys ask me every single day. Every single day of my existence I get tough questions from you guys."
Brown, who in 2010 won his seat in a special election following the death of longtime liberal Senator Ted Kennedy, will face a tough re-election challenge from Warren in what is expected to be a close and costly race. Warren, according to a Boston Herald poll taken earlier this month, leads the incumbent Republican by seven points, and has so far pulled in strong fundraising numbers. (In the third quarter, having entered the race just six weeks prior, Warren earned $3.15 million compared to Brown's $1.55 million.)
"She's going to have every advantage. ... I don't have a machine behind me like she will, and she does clearly," Brown told the Herald. "It would help if you guys would ask her some tough questions, too, and ask her about how she would vote on things and why."
The candidate painted his opponent as "very, very liberal" and unwilling to compromise.
"I think the consensus out there is that she is obviously very, very liberal, especially when she's stating that she's created the intellectual foundation for the Occupy Wall Street," Brown added. "And then the fact that she's gonna leave blood and teeth on the streets and not gonna compromise and only wants to work on big things - well you know what, we have plenty of ideologues down there, and a lot of partisanship down there already."
"If you're gonna get anything done," Brown said, "you need to work in a bipartisan bicameral manner."
Brown has been one of few Republicans to break ranks in the Senate since President Obama's election, voting with Democrats to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell, financial regulation, health care and others, likely in the hopes of attracting support from the solidly blue Massachusetts.
"I've had Democratic Party support, Republican Party support, Tea Party support and, quite frankly, people who just like to party have also supported me and I hope to have that as well," Brown said. "I need everybody's help, I can't do this alone -- there's too many factors moving against me."
In a Thursday e-mail to Hotsheet, Warren spokesman Kyle Sullivan defended Warren's commitment to the middle class.
"Elizabeth stood up to Wall Street and its army of lobbyists to make a difference for middle class families. Her leadership helped create a new agency protecting consumers from big bank rip-offs -- effective leadership and determination that will help Elizabeth in the Senate make a difference for middle class families in Massachusetts," he said.
Brown has proposed facing off with Warren in a handful of debates in the coming election.
