Elizabeth Warren style announced his candidacy for U.S. Senate here on Wednesday and plunged down the street at the political level, greeting commuters at a train stops at the beginning of what could be a marquee Senate race of 2012.
Style Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard professor and consumer advocate who the Republicans have already branded Outsider - It 'grew up in Oklahoma - is pumped into your hands, pats on the back, and even slipped into revered by the Massachusetts Department of Dunkin' Donuts , asking for support.She then moved on to Worcester, Springfield and other Democratic strongholds for more of the same, perhaps eager to prove she could connect with voters as adeptly as Senator Scott P. Brown, the well-liked Republican incumbent whose seat has become a prime target for national Democrats.
Ms. Warren, 62, is far from being the Democratic nominee. She must first compete in a crowded primary that will not take place until next September. And while many national Democrats believe she has the best chance of beating Mr. Brown, some in Massachusetts, including Mayor Thomas Menino of Boston, have questioned whether voters will take to Ms. Warren as a candidate.
Among her potential challenges is the fact that Massachusetts has a poor record of electing women. Only four have ever been elected to the House of Representatives, and none to the Senate.
In an announcement video, Ms. Warren painted herself as an unyielding defender of the middle class, an image that she has been honing for years and that will be central to her campaign.
“The middle class has been chipped at, hacked at, squeezed and hammered for a generation now,” she said in the video. “I don’t think Washington gets it.”
The Democrats’ reasons for wanting to capture Mr. Brown’s seat are not only practical but emotional: Mr. Brown, then a little-known Republican, stunned the Democratic establishment in Massachusetts and Washington by winning a 2010 special election for the seat that Edward M. Kennedy held for 47 years until his death.
Mr. Brown’s opponent in that election, Attorney General Martha Coakley, was thought not to have worked hard enough to connect with voters. Mr. Brown, a former state senator, was seen as a pickup-driving everyman who understood the problems of average Americans.
Eric Fehrnstrom, a political adviser to Mr. Brown, said in a statement that the Democratic primary would be “crowded, long and divisive.”
“In the meantime, people are hurting, and they are looking for work,” Mr. Fehrnstrom said. “Scott Brown is going to keep his focus on creating jobs, keeping taxes low and getting spending and debt under control.”
Ms. Warren, an authority on bankruptcy law, once hoped to run the consumer financial protection agency that she conceived of and helped create over the last year in Washington. But President Obama decided against tapping her to run it after Republicans vowed to block the nomination.
Other Democrats running include Alan Khazei, who co-founded a national service program and finished third among four candidates in the primary in 2009; Setti Warren, the mayor of Newton; and Bob Massie, a former candidate for lieutenant governor.
Mr. Brown has already raised nearly $10 million for his re-election race, according to the most recent filings, but many Democrats say Ms. Warren could match him in fund-raising by tapping into national networks. She played down the importance of money in response to a reporter’s question, saying, “I can be outspent, but I can’t be outworked.”
Kathryn Kinzel, a hospital researcher who happened upon Ms. Warren while waiting for a bus, said she was an independent voter who supported Mr. Brown in 2010 but was open to other candidates. She said she had “vaguely” heard of Ms. Warren and liked what she heard in their brief exchange.
“She told me that she really wanted to fight for the middle class, that they’ve been hammered on for a very long time, and if things didn’t start to change we’d be in big trouble,” said Ms. Kinzel, 25. “But I’m not quite sure if any one candidate is able to turn things around for an entire group of people, especially with the way things are in Washington right now.”