Elizabeth Warren Refines Position On Occupy Wall Street

This post has been updated.

Harvard law professor and Democratic Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren is refining her relationship with the Occupy Wall Street movement, according to an interview conducted after her comment to The Daily Beast Tuesday saying that she supported the movement and created "much of the intellectual foundation" for it.

"I created much of the intellectual foundation for what they do," she had said, referring to her academic work on consumer debt. "I support what they do." The National Republican Senatorial Committee pounced on her comments, saying her support was "notable" since "Boston Police Department was recently forced to arrest at least 141 of her Occupy acolytes in Boston the other day after they threatened to tie up traffic downtown and refused to abide by their protest permit limits."

In an interview Tuesday with a local reporter published in Mother Jones, she downplayed her earlier claim of credit. "I had a long conversation with someone about the Occupy Wall Street movement. I said, I think, I've been protesting Wall Street for a very long time." She added, "There's not a question of is there enough credit to go around...So I am glad that that conversation is going forward and that it's going forward in an organic way."

Her recent comments are not substantially different from what she said originally about the movement in a Democratic candidates debate in early October. "Everyone has to follow the law, that has to be the starting place," she said. "But no one understands better what the frustration is right now. The people on Wall Street broke this country," she added.

Indeed, Warren told the Boston Globe Friday that she wanted the demonstrators to stay within the law, and mentioned an encounter with a police officer who was part of the "99 percent" but wanted to make sure the protestors obeyed the law.

The Washington Post reported Wednesday that the movement could help Democrats in 2012 turn the election in a populist direction.

Warren remains in a close race against incumbent Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.).

Her first volunteer gathering, held Tuesday, was extremely well attended.

 

 

Comments

[ashley22]

10:23 AM on 11/04/2011

I think she is a teabagger,By doing absolutely nothing,the social programs Dem's favor will be cut
and the defense programs GOP.S favor will be cut.each can then go back to their constituents
during the upcoming election cycle and blame the other side for the cuts to their favored programs.The current congress can't govern,but they sure know how to set the stage for their
re-election campaigns.

[Nota Dualcov]

12:40 PM on 10/31/2011

As long as you have the Federal Reserve, you are going to still have these problems. I didn't back Bush, McCain, or Obama because they wanted those bailouts to Wall Street. I am supporting Ron Paul. I don't care who the media is picking.

[goldizendt]

11:09 AM on 10/31/2011

Homer Simpson's twin sister?

"Doh!"

[marklincoln8]

02:01 PM on 10/30/2011

I am not a OWS paticipant but I fully back them. It just may be the last peacefull stand before the growing majority cries out for a revolution. Many say these people have nothing better to do and not knowing, in a sense they are right. They are there because they want something better, jobs, but also good jobs like vwe had before 2001. It seems that the only candidates running for president are pushing a thing they call "take back America". I say to them, take it back to what? I'm not satisfied with where we now are but I'm certainly not foolish enough to not realize why. Where we're at now did'nt start when Obama was elected. He could'nt have picked a much worse time to take the job. Remember we gave Bush 8 years to destruct our nation. Are we being fair with Obama to expect recovery in 3 years? Remember we were in free fall when he took over and I have to think were are starting a turn but first you have to get a good level footing and at this time the republicans in congress are doing their best to prevent this.

[MightyYowp]

09:24 PM on 10/29/2011

The harsh truth is that if Warren and the current admin had lived up to their promises and really protected consumers and home owners,re- regulated the Market and prosecuted the fat cats there would not be the outrage there is now, fueling the Occupy Wall Street movement.

[francfist]

09:01 PM on 10/29/2011

the idea to regulate the financial product rather than the company - that's a thought.
I find myself wanting to fall in love again - but my heart has been broken so many times......sigh.

[tpsdodger]

04:44 PM on 10/28/2011

If someone was to say to me that they created much of the intellectual foundation for something I did, I would have to call them GOD.
Oh yea, that IS what you libs call her.

[General Public]

03:31 AM on 10/29/2011

Anyone who routinely uses the phrase "you libs" doesn't HAVE an intellectual foundation, they have an anti-intellectual foundation.

[exmate]

05:27 PM on 10/29/2011

The wheeler and dealers on Wall Street created the problem. Until recently, they had God-like status in our culture, Liz Warren simply identified and articulated the problem. Relatively few of those wheler/dealers will completely lose their God-like status and go to prison. Their ill-gotten gains will buy them the best of lawyers.

[marklincoln8]

02:09 PM on 10/30/2011

Maybe that's what they will call creating jobs but to qualify you first must be a good lawyer that has no integrity.

[dukie1955]

05:59 PM on 10/28/2011

"Maybe Lizzie doesn't knows that communists­, socialists­, anarchists­, anti-Semit­es, Chinese and American communists parties, David Duke, the Neo-Nazis, unions, anti-capit­alists, Islamists and others wanting to destroy the American economy are supporting OWS..." you left out THE DEVIL - come on guy, get it right.

[Mike Rock]

09:27 AM on 10/28/2011

Can you imagine the truckloads of secret money gushing into Massachusetts to defeat this woman? Not surprised if there's a billion bucks sent there under the cover of the new secret-money-is-ok ruling by the bought-and-paid-for supreme court ... Warren is one of the greatest American heroes alive.

[francfist]

09:21 PM on 10/29/2011

secret, dirty, hateful money, much of it will be used to create lying, exaggerating, ugly, campaign ads.

[No More Left]

02:39 PM on 10/31/2011

How is she a hero? She tried to take credit for OWS when we all know she lied. She's no different than the rest but somehow you call her a hero.

Fire fighters are heroes, not democrats.

[Mike Rock]

08:14 AM on 11/01/2011

Fire fighters, unless they're duped, like you, not billionaires, but supporting the OPP (one percent party) whose policies exclusively benefit billionaires, are indeed Democrats.

[roxiehart]

03:38 PM on 10/27/2011

"I created much of the intellectual foundation for what they do,"

Perfect! She owns it, and it won't end well for her or her OWS misfits.

[General Public]

03:37 AM on 10/29/2011

I'll tell you who it won't end well for: anyone who opposes our Constitutional rights of free speech and freedom of assembly.

[francfist]

09:25 PM on 10/29/2011

Are you sure about that roxiehart "They both reached for a gun" - is that like a threat? I'm sorry - that made me laugh - you need to pick a stronger screen name to go with that phrase, roxiehart - something like ArmedPatriot, ya know?

[roxiehart]

12:39 AM on 10/30/2011

Didn't see the movie "Chicago", did ya? Didn't think so. Explains a lot about the quality of your research.

[Mar51]

02:28 PM on 10/27/2011

Is this like Al Gore inventing the internet?

[Jack Straw]

02:07 PM on 10/28/2011

No, it's more like Bush and Cheney "ending" the war on terror....

[stape45]

03:23 PM on 10/28/2011

Bet you find direct quotes boring, don't you?

[juliebird]

08:22 AM on 10/27/2011

Excellent response to a ridiculous mischaracterization. (Dear opposition: Nice try to re-play the Al Gore "I invented the internet" smear. Same old playbook....)

[WSAY]

10:04 AM on 10/27/2011

Plus Gore never said that.

[juliebird]

10:43 AM on 10/27/2011

I know. But that was the story, and it, as much as anything, cost him the election. Elizabeth Warren is clarifying her remarks to prevent a similar meme from emerging.

[jhooperaa]

04:01 AM on 10/27/2011

Do not let the granny glasses and little black pumps she wears fool you. She is a far far left socialist who is the darling of the far far left and wants like Obama to turn America into what Europe is. How is that working for them over there? Not well.

[QuakerJewish]

09:24 AM on 10/27/2011

Northern Europe, the core of the EU, is doing far much better than America. Far much better. So are the Canadians. They are all socialist democracies. Seems to work far better than the fascist policies we have been under since Reagan.

So you actually make an excellent point. We should be more like Europe and less like Columbia or Equador.

[Mar51]

02:30 PM on 10/27/2011

Then let's address our debt like the Canadians did. SIX dollars of cuts for every dollar of tax increases.

It worked for them.

[General Public]

03:47 AM on 10/29/2011

Europe only has problems because they have a single currency and multiple independent nations with their own fiscal policies that operate independently of the currency, thus separating fiscal and monetary policy by making fiscal policy operate individually in many small nations while monetary policy operates internationally over an entire continent. Basically, it makes countries like Greece become "too big to fail" just like the big banks here. There is no problem with leftist politics or with socialism, the problem in Europe is a unified currency and unified monetary policy for a continent, while fiscal policy is handled separately by each sovereign nation. Either they need to have both fiscal and monetary policy be handled together at the international level, or they need to have both be handled together at the national level, which means Europe either needs to have a single government that taxes and spends money over all of the European Union, or it needs to discontinue the Euro and European Union and go back to each nation having a separate currency. Discontinuing the European Union is a better idea because they have too many different languages for the one-government idea to ever possibly work. Europe's troubles have nothing to do with socialism, and the nations like Sweden and Switzerland that have implemented good socialist systems and didn't join the European Union in the first place are doing fine.

[MA DAVID]

01:34 AM on 10/27/2011

A weasel Marxist...just like Obama likes and supports. When will he be gone!!!???

[QuakerJewish]

09:25 AM on 10/27/2011

2016.

[Mixguru]

09:09 PM on 10/27/2011

How did you get so many fans posting drivel like that?

[Mike Rock]

09:29 AM on 10/28/2011

nice slogan

[No more Kool Aid]

12:38 AM on 10/27/2011

I'm not a big Glen Beck fan, but Warren is exactly the poison he speaks of that is brainwashing our youth! She pulls so far to the left she makes Palin and Backman look like Moderates. Yes libs , We are afraid of her because she is trying to tear down the things that made this counrty great. We are at our best when we are afraid. Unlike the left, which hides, points and blames!

[WSAY]

10:05 AM on 10/27/2011

At you admit to being a coward. That is something, I guess.

[mespeland]

02:57 PM on 10/27/2011

She is trying to make people accountable. That is what made our country great, accountability, not the greed of the right we see today. As far back as I can remember, and I'm old, the right has been nothing but a bunch of greedy, self-serving bunch of people who only are out for what they can take from others.

[antiquepicker62]

04:27 PM on 10/27/2011

Is that so? Then why not let these protesters be accountable for their own tuition costs their own food and other costs that us accountable citizens work so hard every day for?