John Kerry

and point out that he lost in spite of having favorables in the 70s. I suspect that Warren will link Brown to McConnell/Boehner et al. I agree that it is not completely parallel, but Weld was far more liberal and there are votes to point to where Brown did not vote as the majority of Massachusetts wants. Both Weld and Brown were loved by the MA media.

I agree that 2008 was very easy. Tay Tay helped me do a small amount of phone banking in the primary when I was concerned. She said that they were calling only Democrats. I was surprised that people referred to him as "John" and were very happy to vote for him. I agree that this will be far tougher. Brown is the incumbent and he is well liked by the media.

I don't think it looks bad for Warren, as she has polled ahead of him in every poll since December. I DON'T think this is because Warren is a fantastic super candidate. I think it was clear she was going to be the Democratic nominee - and the vote is really based primarily on party. Brown won the special election with about the votes that McCain lost by. The Democrats lost that election by not voting. Brown needs to get considerably more voters than last time.

I think the "intellectual basis of Occupy" was a HUGE unforced error - and I hope she understands that. I posted in GD way back in October that I thought OWS would ultimately be a negative - even though it did an incredible job in September changing the topic to the 1%. Many politicians had used this - whether Cuomo in the 1980s or John Edwards in the 2000s or nearly every Democratic leader to one degree or another - and they did better in breaking through. The reason I saw it as ultimately negative was there was no "exit strategy". So, they would stay forever - becoming less novel and more just annoying as towns coped with them - or the end story was that they were evicted. Neither a positive story. As they insisted they had no leader, there was no strategy.

I think that Warren in person would be a likable person, but I don't get that from the best loved rants that went viral. I did get that from teh ad she did to introduce herself. The one thing I worry about is that some on the left who really really like her might do to her what the Deaniacs did to Dean. Dean, in reality was a moderate governor of Vermont. He had progressives running against in most elections. They did provide a lot of energy and money, but they may have hurt him when they flocked to Iowa.

Most of the good politicians - both in terms of the issue and in terms of having a clue about politics, played it far better. Speaking of the issue and saying they understood the frustration, but not stepping over the line to be identified with it. Only on DU and similar boards would OWS be uncritically praised. Unfortunately, that comment both linked her to people seen as somewhat extreme, while making her Harvard professor credential more obvious.

The only "MA" people I really know are liberal friends of a daughter who went to school there and everyone I met through DU JK - neither is useful in knowing how genuinely non-partisan people will respond. I do think that the MA people here are pretty positive.