A Fighting Chance (62 page)

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, always an outspoken leader on issues concerning women, also jumped into the debate on ABC’s
This Week
: “I thought it spoke volumes about how clueless Senator Brown is.… It really spoke volumes about, really, disrespect for women that he may not even realize. I bet you he would like to take that comment back.” Sam Stein, “Nancy Pelosi: Scott Brown Is Clueless,”
Huffington Post
, October 9, 2011.

“first major gaffe” of the campaign:
Garrett Quinn, “Brown’s First Major Gaffe of the 2012 Race,”
Less Is More
(blog),
Boston.com
, October 6, 2011. See also Hillary Chabot, “Case Clothed: Scott Brown Quip Hits Below the Belt,”
BostonHerald.com
, October 7, 2011.

all the reporters in Massachusetts:
More often when I was out and about, Alethea Harney was along to help with press. Alethea was not only calm and well informed, she was a pleasure to be with, day in and day out. No matter what, she kept smiling. And back in the office, Julie Edwards kept all the pieces moving, efficiently and effectively managing our communications.

“She’s not a lesbian”:
For the interview with the
Daily Beast,
see Samuel P. Jacobs, “Warren Takes Credit for Occupy Wall Street,”
Daily Beast
, October 24, 2011.

The Occupy Protesters rightly took issue with my statement; see Diana Perez, “Protesters Say They Deserve Credit for Occupy Boston, Not Warren,”
CBS Local,
October 25, 2011.

“
13 months before the general election”:
Nick Baumann, “Check Out This Crazy Photo of an Elizabeth Warren Volunteer Meeting,”
Mother Jones
, October 27, 2011.

competitive
edge around the world:
See the “Nifty50” from the National Science Foundation, which are NSF-funded inventions, innovations, and discoveries.
http://www.nsf.gov/about/history/nifty50/
.

$221 in new business activity:
See NIH report: “It has been estimated that every $1 of NIH funding generates about $2.21 in local economic growth. Also, discoveries arising from NIH-funded research serve as a foundation for the entire U.S. biomedical industry. Long considered the world’s leader in innovation, that vital sector exports an estimated $90 billion in goods and services annually and employs 1 million U.S. citizens with wages totaling an estimated $84 billion,”
http://www.nih.gov/about/impact/economy.htm
.

half what it was when I was growing up:
According to the NSF, federally funded R&D as a percent of GDP ranged from 1.74 to 1.92 percent from 1961 to 1968. By 2011, this figure was .89 percent, or less than half at the peak during my childhood. See “Table 1. Gross domestic product and research and development (total, federally funded, nonfederal): 1953–2011.” Available at
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf13318/pdf/tab01.pdf
.

is a boys’ game:
Marla Romash, who has done incredible work helping women candidates get elected, just laughed when she read the nonsense. Stay steady, she would advise, and win. People like tough women—they just may not know it yet.

“looking like the head of the PTA”:
David Boeri, “Warren Takes Her Campaign on the Road,”
WBUR.org
, September 15, 2011.

Britney Schultz, “Elizabeth Warren Announces Senate Run,”
Truthout
, September 14, 2011.

paid a generation earlier:
For more data on the increase in the cost of a college education, see Sandy Baum and Jennifer Ma, “Trends in College Pricing 2013,” College Board, October 23, 2013. Over the thirty years from 1983–84 to 2013–14, average published tuition and fees at private nonprofit four-year institutions rose by 153 percent, from $11,909 (in 2013 dollars) to $30,094. The average published price at public two-year colleges rose by 164 percent, from $1,235 (in 2013 dollars) to $3,264, while the increase for in-state students at public four-year institutions was 231 percent, from $2,684 to $8,893.

This has helped fuel the enormous rise in student loan debt. See “Total Student Loan Debt, Q1 1999 to Q1 2011,” Demos,
http://www.demos.org/data-byte/total-student-loan-debt-q1-1999-q1-2011
.

“what about transgender?”:
Over the years, the Human Rights Campaign and many other organizations have fought to raise awareness around issues that affect transgender people. I am proud to work alongside them.

“widely debunked by independent fact checkers”:
“During the 2010 elections, Crossroads GPS, the group cofounded by Karl Rove, spent millions and millions of dollars blanketing airwaves across the country with ads full of falsehoods and distortions that were widely debunked by independent fact checkers. Now that’s happening again—only if anything, this time the distortions are even more brazen, and the sleaze factor is even higher.” Greg Sargent, “Rove-Founded Group Again Blanketing Airwaves with Falsehoods, Distortions, and Sleaze,”
Plum Line
(blog),
Washington Post
, November 10, 2011. See also
FactCheck.org:
“A group with ties to Karl Rove sends viewers ashtray in a $2 million ad campaign attacking Democratic Senate candidates in Pennsylvania, California and Kentucky. The ads make badly misleading claims about the health care legislation that those Democrats supported.” “Misdirection from Crossroads GPS,” August 30, 2010,
http://www.factcheck.org/2010/08/misdirection-from-crossroads-gps/
.

Since Rove’s donor list was secret:
See Matea Gold, “Secret Donors Pour Millions of Dollars into Crossroads GPS,”
Los Angeles Times
, April 17, 2012.
Factcheck.org
also reports: “Crossroads GPS is organized as a 501(c)(4) under the federal tax code and thus, unlike its parent group, isn’t required to disclose its donors—though it says on its website there are “no limits” to the amount of money it will accept from U.S. corporations (or unions, for that matter). Officially, the full name of the group is Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies.” See
http://www.factcheck.org/2010/08/mis
direction-from-crossroads-gps/.

attacks on the police, and heavy drugs:
To see the ad, see Crossroads GPS: “Foundation,” MA, November 9, 2011,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNxez4ddpa0
. The attention was strong and immediate. See Zeke Miller, “Karl Rove–Backed Group Unveils Vicious Ad Against Elizabeth Warren and the ‘Occupy’ Protesters,”
Business Insider
, November 11, 2011. See also Brendan Fischer, “Rove’s Crossroads GPS Attacks Occupy Movement, Elizabeth Warren,”
PR Watch
, November 11, 2011. See also Steve LeBlanc, “National PAC Launches Anti-Elizabeth Warren Ad,”
Boston Globe
, November 10, 2011. For my first television ad, see Lucy Madison, “In First TV Ad, Elizabeth Warren Blasts Wall St., Pledges to Even Playing Field,”
CBS News
, November 14, 2011.

“we need jobs, not more bailouts”:
Amy Bingham, “Ad Twists Elizabeth Warren’s Role as TARP Watchdog,”
The Note
(blog,)
ABC News
, December 8, 2011.

For my campaign’s response, Kyle Sullivan noted that I had been “an outspoken critic of the bank bailout and its blank check to Wall Street.… The Wall Street bankers financing these attacks are desperate to stop Elizabeth Warren because she’s worked so hard to stop Wall Street from ripping off middle class families.” Lucy Madison, “Crossroads: Elizabeth Warren Responsible for Bank Bailouts,”
CBS News
, December 8, 2011.

an environmental group had already gone after:
The League of Conservation Voters made a $1.9 million ad buy in the Boston media market in late October 2011, criticizing Brown for his votes to support Big Oil. See Joshua Miller, “Environmental Group Buys Ads Against Scott Brown (VIDEO),”
Roll Call
, October 25, 2011. See also David Catanese, “League Targets Brown on Big Oil,”
Politico
, October 25, 2011. Scott Brown hit back with a Web ad and an op-ed refuting some of the claims, arguing: “In reality, I have worked across the aisle on bipartisan legislation to protect our communities from harmful pollutants, to make our homes and businesses more energy-efficient and to begin to wean us off foreign oil.” See Luke Johnson, “Scott Brown Hits Back Against League of Conservation Voters ‘Gone Washington’ Ad,”
Huffington Post
, November 1, 2011.

“bless their hearts for trying”:
Clare Malone, “What’s So ‘Super’ About Super PACs?,”
American Prospect
, February 8, 2012. Dan Eggen, “Scott Brown, Elizabeth Warren Pledge to Curb Outside Campaign Spending,”
Washington Post
, January 23, 2012. Manu Raju, “Elizabeth Warren, Scott Brown Settle on Super PAC Pledge,”
Politico,
January 23, 2012.

“respect the People’s Pledge”:
“LCV Responds to People’s Pledge Agreed to by Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown,” League of Conservation Voters, January 23, 2012,
http://www.lcv.org/media/press-releases/LCV-Responds-to-People-s-Pledge-Agreed-to-by-Elizabeth-Warren-and-ScottBrown.html
.

“forklifts of paperwork through”:
Abby Goodnough and Jess Bidgood, “Massachusetts Senate Candidates Look to Limit Outside Advertising,”
The Caucus
(blog)
New York Times
, January 23, 2012.

plagiarizing my own book:
Hunter Walker, “
National Review
Apologizes for Accusing Elizabeth Warren of Plagiarism,”
Politicker.com
, May 18, 2012; “National Review’s Elizabeth Warren Plagiarism Claim Quickly Debunked,”
Huffington Post
, May 19, 2012.

hated people who drank beer:
Devra First, “The Food-Culture Wars,”
Dishing
(blog),
Boston.com
, April 13, 2012.

gun violence every day:
For more on gun-related deaths, see Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence,
http://www.bradycampaign.org/?q=about-gun-violence
.

Statistics were compiled using the most recent data available from CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control’s Web-Based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting for years 2008–2010.

See also “We Can Do Better: Protect Children Not Guns 2013,” The Children’s Defense Fund, July 24, 2013,
http://www.childrensdefense.org/child-research-data-publications/data/protect-children-not-guns-2013.pdf
, 60.

including the Harvard hiring committee:
“… Officials involved in [Warren’s] hiring at Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Texas and the University of Houston Law Center all said that she was hired because she was an outstanding teacher, and that her lineage was either not discussed or not a factor.” Katharine Q. Seelye and Abby Goodnough, “Candidate for Senate Defends Past Hiring,”
New York Times
, April 30, 2012.

Professor Charles Fried from Harvard Law School, who had served as solicitor general under Ronald Reagan and was a registered Republican and an avowed Scott Brown supporter in 2010, came forward to identify himself as the head of the committee that hired me at Harvard, saying that the suggestion that Warren “attained her position and maintains her reputation on anything other than her evident merit is complete nonsense.” Catalina Camia, “Harvard Professor: Elizabeth Warren Got Job on Merits,”
USA Today
, May 7, 2012.

In other interviews, Fried gave equally strong statements: “‘It simply played no role in the appointments process. It was not mentioned and I didn’t mention it to the faculty,’ he said. ‘In spite of conclusive evidence to the contrary, the story continues to circulate that Elizabeth Warren enjoyed some kind of affirmative action leg-up in her hiring as a full professor by the Harvard Law School. The innuendo is false. I can state categorically that the subject of her Native American ancestry never once was mentioned,’ he added. That view was echoed by Law School Professor Laurence H. Tribe, who voted to tenure Warren and was also involved in recruiting her. ‘Elizabeth Warren’s heritage had absolutely no role in the decision to recruit her to Harvard Law School,’ he told the
Crimson
. ‘Our decision was entirely based on her extraordinary expertise and legendary teaching ability. This whole dispute is fabricated out of whole cloth and has no connection to reality.’” Garance Franke-Ruta, “Is Elizabeth Warren Native American or What?,”
Atlantic
, May 5, 2012.