Elizabeth Warren's 2012 Democratic Primary Challengers Face Steep Battle In Massachusetts

Elizabeth Warren is already focused on unseating Republican Sen. Scott Brown in the Massachusetts Senate race, but first, she'll have to get through the Democratic primary in September.

Five of her would-be challengers have already give up, but two -- Marisa DeFranco and Jim King -- are still in the running.

As WBUR reports, they're a little frustrated that Warren hasn't joined them in candidate forums throughout the state.

"We’d love to have Elizabeth Warren here and in other forums in the future," King said at one event. "We can articulate our individual positions on the issues that are important in this campaign."

Warren, meanwhile, has been extraordinarily successful in fundraising, and was leading Brown in a December poll.

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Republican John Sanchez Drops New Mexico Senate Bid [Roll Call]

California Pension Reform Group Suspends Campaign [The Sacramento Bee]

NY Democrat Weighs Primary Challenge To Nydia Velázquez [City & State]

Ohio Republicans Plan To Repeal Strict State Voting Law [Cleveland Plain Dealer]

Congressional Approval Rating Reaches New Low [The Washington Post]

Virginia Senate Candidate Tim Kaine Breaks With President Obama On Contraception Issue [NBC]

Democratic Mayor Backs Republican Challenger For New Jersey Senate Seat [PolitickerNJ]

Utah's Mike Lee Endorses Sarah Steelman For Missouri Senate [The Salt Lake Tribune]

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Comments

[geribentley]

09:21 AM on 02/13/2012

I think Elizabeth Warren should run for president after the President has spent his last 4 years fighting for the every day people. I guess Scott Brown thinks we are a bunch of idiots kissing the Presidents ring. Eeek! Some people will do anything to stay into office.

[mejohndoe]

06:26 PM on 02/12/2012

Elizabeth would make a good partner for the Constitutionalist that the mass media likes to pretend doesnt exist.

[smburwick]

12:56 PM on 02/11/2012

I think it is time for all bankers in America to show the letters from the government threatening them if they didn't lend money to people for houses they couldn't afford. I have friends who worked during 70's on and when Clinton and Reno started the redlining.Problem with all of you, you have short term memory. Long term memory only to blame.

[John Hay]

12:31 AM on 02/11/2012

#Obama fans are Tweeting for #ElizabethWarren to weave her magic as Keynote Speaker @ #DNC Convention. Let it happen!

Tweet message @jollyswagman1

[smburwick]

05:09 PM on 02/10/2012

To the person who said that Warren is an educator? Yes, indoctrination to hating what has made this country the place where everyone has wanted to live in freedom.

[lifepanels]

11:53 AM on 02/11/2012

By protecting consumers from predatory lenders?

[smburwick]

12:52 PM on 02/11/2012

Oh a great protector? That is her claim to fame, and credentials for a liberal? Now the other word is 'predatory'. When there is a transaction two people are involved and if the party reads what he or she is signing, how could that be predatory? People in this country sign and never read before? Didn't Pelosi say that? Nothing is predatory if a person signs up knowing what they are signing. Coakley is a hack but she does do her job well in Mass. So you assume lenders are cruel? Then choose another! This whold demonization of the big bad banks is absurd. Why BO just took a lot of money from them just like puff! Robbing Peter to pay Paul. You all just love having crooked people work for you.

[Yank in France]

11:38 AM on 02/13/2012

Speaking of education, would you like to rephrase your second sentence?!

[Celeste5793]

04:46 PM on 02/10/2012

Scott Brown has been a good senator, and before him a good legislator in this state. But I have no idea who Elizabeth Warren is.

[smburwick]

05:10 PM on 02/10/2012

She is another clone of the group we dealing with in Washington.

[DANIELISTICALL]

03:36 PM on 02/10/2012

We can have a fighter for the middle class Elizabeth Warren – or Wall Street’s favorite senator Scott Brown. We can have a safety net beneath us – or nothing but bootstraps. We can strengthen the middle class – or favor billionaires by shifting the burden onto workers’ backs
Warren is perhaps one of the financial industry's most loathed figures. Saying she's too close to Wall Street is sort of like saying Ralph Nader is too close to General Motors because, you know, he spent a whole year researching a book about the car industry.
Warren's whole reputation is based on being the Scourge of Wall Street

[smburwick]

05:11 PM on 02/10/2012

Well Warren is the sweetheart of Hollywood socialists.

[DANIELISTICALL]

03:33 PM on 02/10/2012

That, in essence, is the idea driving Warren's unlikely candidacy—that the federal government has ceased to invest in what made America great. "We live in an America that has hammered, chipped, and squeezed the middle class," she tells a senior-center audience the next day. Like Occupy Wall Street and the brawls over union rights in Wisconsin and Ohio, Warren's race to retake the late Teddy Kennedy's seat from Brown has become a proxy war in the fight for the middle class. The

[Swamp People]

02:31 PM on 02/10/2012

Don't worry liberals....the democrat party will hold a coronation for mommy government.

[Swamp People]

03:13 PM on 02/10/2012

Right before she gets trounced by Scott Brown.

[Salukeitis]

04:44 PM on 02/10/2012

Your mouth is detached from your brain.

[chris hatala]

04:32 PM on 02/10/2012

Do baggers really live in a swamp? I knew it!

[smburwick]

05:12 PM on 02/10/2012

You are part of the swamp the lichens.

[Brbr2424]

01:58 PM on 02/10/2012

How stupid do they have to be to be running in a primary against Elizabeth Warren?

[FreedToChoose]

04:07 PM on 02/10/2012

Actually, it gives her more PR.

[sagmann]

01:49 PM on 02/10/2012

"Elizabeth Warren's 2012 Democratic Primary Challengers Face Steep Battle In Massachusetts "

Who asked them to run??? If they are not false Dems, running ONLY to disrupt Warren's campaign, (see Wisconsin...typically dirty Repubs' tactics) they should withdraw and throw their full support behind her!.

[tomasagee]

02:16 PM on 02/10/2012

Marisa DeFranco was in the race before Elizabeth Warren was and is a more authentic progressive candidate: http://www.salemnews.com/local/x2063983441/DeFranco-unabashedly-liberal-in-Senate-run

[FreedToChoose]

04:11 PM on 02/10/2012

No one is endowed with the exclusive right to run unopposed. It's their right. Anyone who runs for office because they were asked, may not be fit to serve. Those who choose to run can. Who thought Obama had a chance when he declared his candidacy five years ago (today, I believe)?

This is America sagmann. You can run, too.

[anthdif]

01:39 PM on 02/10/2012

Elizabeth warren ought to get her head out of her text books and stop pitting what she calls middle class against everyone else. I am still waiting for one of these politicians to define the middle class. She ought to realize that many big corporations employ middle class people and without those corporations trying to protect their interests, then they would not be able to employ those people. Shut down all those corporations, increase their taxes (of which she clearly doesn't understand the tax system) and I guarantee the first group of people to suffer will be those employed middle class people working for those corporations. Stop the BO bull Elizabeth. Run on solid policy with substance and save your academic rhetoric for the classroom.

[dayzee10]

04:03 PM on 02/10/2012

As with usual Retealibanbaggerican claptrap.......HUH?

[Gmasters]

04:33 PM on 02/10/2012

(of which she clearly doesn't understand the tax system)

Nobody understands the Corporate Tax System.
Things like: How is it that GE can earn $5 Billion and pay Zero Taxes?

The Tax code has been very carefully rigged by Wall Street lobbyists to give them lots of Corporate Welfare instead of paying their fair share.

[anthdif]

10:05 AM on 02/11/2012

The question is easy and the answer is just as easy. GE paid a lot of taxes, payroll, local, state etc. In 2010 GE did not pay any federal taxes because they didn't owe any. As a coporation they pay advances on taxes and then throughout the course of the year they account for expenses, reivenstments, losses etc. Under the tax laws they are then able to deduct those charges against any money owed based on 'taxable income." This is similar to what individuals do when filing their tax returns but in the case of corporations far more complex. Should GE pay federal taxes? The answer is not if doesn't owe any. As for lobbyist and avoiding taxes that's just bunk. Now for the millions of employees of GE, GE pays matching funds in the amount of approximately 10 percent of payroll. That is a considerable amount of money. Attack GE, increase their tax base and you rob peter to pay paul because in most cases when a corporation has to cut expenses, its payroll. My point to you and all the other blind followers of Warren is be careful in attacking a system that works, like it or not, to the benefit of its employees. As the old saying goes, don't bite the hand that feeds you.

[Pippen]

01:18 PM on 02/10/2012

Oh Captain My Captain !!!

Pay attention moms, THIS is what we want our daughters to become. This is LEADERSHIP by example.

I've been sending a few dollars here and there to her campaign and I don't even live in her state!

We need this woman.

America needs Elizabeth Warren. And we need her NOW !

[tomasagee]

02:14 PM on 02/10/2012

http://www.salemnews.com/local/x2063983441/DeFranco-unabashedly-liberal-in-Senate-run

[datenutloaf]

03:34 PM on 02/10/2012

Yes, we do need her NOW!

[sticks n stones]

12:48 PM on 02/10/2012

Elizabeth Warren lags in key district

www.bostonherald.com/news/politics/view.bg?articleid=1402568

[jbvbwysu]

01:27 PM on 02/10/2012

Boston Herald...LMFAO

You'd be better off citing the Onion.

[sticks n stones]

01:39 PM on 02/10/2012

Let's see, so you accept the results of the last UMass Lowell/Herald poll, which showed Warren with a slight lead, but you reject the results of the most recent UMass Lowell/Herald poll, which shows her momentum stalling?

ROTFLMFAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[smburwick]

09:54 PM on 02/10/2012

She is just an employee of a college and overpaid to indoctrinate students.

[bynddrvn5]

12:06 PM on 02/10/2012

Elizabeth Warren is an amazing advocate for middle class Americans and the American way. It is time our economy works for all people. A disenfranc­hised work force, is not a productive work force.

Hard to believe that she started off her career as a Republican and researchin­g bankruptcy laws and how the middle class was abusing these rules. What she found was the exact opposite, changed her party affiliation to Democrat and has been advocating leveling the playing field ever since.

[smburwick]

09:55 PM on 02/10/2012

No, she found people of the similar marxist thinking.