Democratic opponent criticizes Elizabeth Warren’s response on Native American issue

Boston Globe ^ | May 18, 2012 | Michael Levenson

[billorites]

For nearly three weeks, Scott Brown’s campaign has been battering Elizabeth Warren for listing herself as a Native American on a legal directory and then being billed as a minority law professor at Harvard University.

Now, Warren has a Democratic critic, too.

Warren’s primary opponent, Marisa DeFranco, who is trying to raise her profile in the race, is arguing that voters should be concerned about Warren’s “lack of a clear, consistent message” in response to the Native American controversy.

“I’m not sure what her answer is because it’s been so various,” DeFranco said today.

DeFranco said that, in general, it is commendable for universities to trumpet their hiring of minority professors. But she questioned why Harvard listed Warren as a minority.

“Come on, you have to look like a person of color,” she said. “You actually have to be a person of color.”

In a statement this afternoon, Warren’s campaign spokesman, Alethea Harney said: “Elizabeth has been straightforward and open about her heritage while the people who recruited her have made it clear it was because of her extraordinary skill as a teacher and a groundbreaking scholar. We’re getting back to the issues that really matter in this election, like how to level the playing field for middle class families.”

The criticism from DeFranco, a North Shore immigration lawyer, could complicate Warren’s ability to dismiss the controversy as a purely partisan attack and return the focus in her Senate race to Brown’s record on financial issues.

Though she has raised only $41,613 in the past year and had just over $8,080 in her political account as of April 1, DeFranco is backed by a small, but passionate band of volunteers and is gearing up for the Democratic convention on June 2 in Springfield.

[billorites]

[Impala64ssa]

Isn’t it wonderful how quotas and set-asides bring out the best in people? As I said on another post, I was born in daBronx so that makes me a “NATIVE AMERICAN” too.

[sitetest]

Regrettably, all the info about Pow Wow Chow Gal has come up too soon. Ms. DeFranco could beat her in the primary, and then Scott Brown wouldn’t be able to run against Ms. Warren.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

At least you were born on the mainland. I was born on a small off-shore island.

[libertarian27]

But she questioned why Harvard listed Warren as a minority.

“Come on, you have to look like a person of color,” she said. “You actually have to be a person of color.”

Blonde's a Color :)

[TruthShallSetYouFree]

I was born in daBronx so that makes me a “NATIVE AMERICAN” too.

Me, too, not far from Rocky Colavito. He was an Indian. A Cleveland Indian.

[hoosiermama]

You all are funny. My blue eyed blond son and his red hair son are from the Boling side of Pocahontas...Maybe he should declare himself an Indian!
Every time I see an article on Warren it reminds me of the Indian Princess in Never Never Land singing I”M AN INDIAN TOO, A SUE OO OOO OOO OOOOO. Wish the knowledge of linking the song was part of knowledge base would add it to each thread.

[kabumpo]

“Come on, you have to look like a person of color,” she said. “You actually have to be a person of color.”

Not true. Friend of mine was going with a man whose mother was a Choctaw from Oklahoma, his father was Anglo, guy had red hair and blue eyes.

[blueunicorn6]

So, we have a liar teaching students at the Harvard Law Skool. What’s that they make you swear when you’re a witness in a trial?
“Do you swear to tell the truth....”
Maybe we should start by swearing-in the judges and lawyers.

[immadashell]

Warren’s “lack of a clear, consistent message” i

She actually has a "clear, consistent message" -- "I'm a whacked out lib."

[Mouton]

“He was an Indian. A Cleveland Indian.”

He was also a Yankee late in his career. It was the team he always wanted to play for. “Yankee”, known in the south as an immigrant!

[Dutch Boy]

Warren can’t respond well because she is from academia where here word shall not be challenged. Now she is being challenged and has only condescension and whining as weapons. She has been caught in a decades old lie and she is being cornered by her own words. I love it.

[The Great RJ]

What is most troubling is that for Elizabeth Warren to claim being of a minority race she has to subscribe to the very racist notion that a single drop of minority blood in your ancestry makes you a minority. This is the same racial purity standard used by the Nazis that sent millions to the gas chambers at the death camps.

[raccoonradio]

Howie Carr list ping.

Yes the MA Turnpike logo in the old days. The arrow meant to symbolize the straight-arrow, fast ride one would get on the road. Pilgrim hat and oh heavens, the arrow must be from
an Indian, then. Later I think the arrow was removed.
Then the hat.

Again, being born in Lynn MA I must say I’m a proud
Native American. Lynn a part of the USA, so...

And for Howie and his listeners: HC was saying yesterday he didn’t know if the ad with Warren and Obama was still running. It is.

[raccoonradio]

Primary is Sept 6 I think; DeFranco has the signatures I believe but still may have to get 15 per cent of vote at the Dem convention. June 2

http://www.valleyvisitor.com/events-calendar-jump-to/events/the-2012-massachusetts-democratic-state-nominating-convention.html

Globe:
>>Under Democratic Party rules, DeFranco must get 15 percent of the delegate vote at the June convention to appear on the primary ballot. That task, though often a struggle for an underfinanced candidate, may be far easier than DeFranco faced in gathering signatures.
If she doesn’t make the ballot it would be a very great surprise,’’ said John Walsh, the state Democratic Party chairman. Walsh said that delegates, impressed that DeFranco secured enough signatures, will feel that she deserves to compete in the party primary.

Walsh and others noted that since the 15-percent rule was put in place in 1982, no leading Democratic candidate has eliminated an opponent during a convention by getting more than 85 percent of the delegate vote.
http://articles.boston.com/2012-05-03/metro/31540156_1_signature-drive-primary-ballot-delegate-vote

[Kenny Bunk]

Speaking as a Republican score-keeper, I must say this DeFranco character, about whom I know absolutely nothing, nevertheless has me worried.

By my count,more than half the white people in Massachusetts have to have a heavy Italian component in their ethnic make-up. What if this DeFranco mobilizes them and knocks off Princess Fauxcahontas?

This could be trouble. Can RINO Brown find an Italian in his woodpile? After all, I, like Lawyer Warren, found a Native American. The Masshole Electorate will seize upon any feeble excuse to vote Democrat!

Now while I am on this pleasant ethnic digression, let me issue a stern warning. When I return from away for the summer, the first one of you Massholes that comes on to me with that fake Massachusetts (faux?) Hibernian Hosshiite gets the full Passamaquoddy enhanced interrogation technique.
Survivors will be billed double. Capeesh?

[Kenny Bunk]

Coon, that arrow went straight through the brain of the Masshole electorate. The hat went somewhere where John Kerry could talk through it.

[A Strict Constructionist]

““Yankee”, known in the south as an immigrant!”

Change immigrant to carpetbagger and you’ve got it.

[Impala64ssa]

Me, too, not far from Rocky Colavito
Yup, when my dad played in the minors he knew Colavito and Rod Carew. Besides great ballplayers they've always been good guys.

[Impala64ssa]

Regrettably, all the info about Pow Wow Chow Gal has come up too soon.
Speaking of Pow Wow Chow, on an episode of Bizzare Foods the other night, Andrew Zimmern was in the wilderness of northern Maine where grilled beaver is the wild game of choice for many people there. Apparently, eating beaver was common among many American Indians in the NE. Since Elizabeth Warren wants to make a big deal of her supposed partial American Indian ancestory, does she eat beaver? Not insinuating anything, just asking ;)