Poor Scott Brown. He thought that Elizabeth Warren was some kind of manipulative, dishonest, hateful racist who "gamed" the system and only got onto Harvard's faculty as a poor beleaguered minority. In this case as a native American.
Actually, I am not sure if Scott really believes this himself, but we do know that it is what he wants Massachusetts voters to think. And that is why he has been focused on this non-issue for three weeks now.
It's a non-issue of course because Warren did no such thing. She had already been hired by Harvard, and not because she was 1/32 Cherokee. She had checked off the "Native American" box on a Harvard survey completely unrelated to her hiring, as the unversity's Charles Fried adamantly attests:
"That's totally stupid, ignorant, uninformed and simply wrong," Fried, also a Harvard Law School professor, told the AP on Monday. "I presented her case to the faculty. I did not mention her Native American connection because I did not know about it.
and again,
poooor Scott! Not only did she not "use" her Native American heritage as a way of getting hired, but the truth is she really and truly
IS 1/32 Cherokee:
Christopher Child of the New England Historic and Genealogy Society said Monday he found an 1894 document in which Warren's great-great-great grandmother is listed as Cherokee, which would make Warren 1/32nd American Indian, reportedly the same degree as Bill John Baker, the current principal chief of the Cherokee Nation.
Oh my!!! But does Scott care about these simple basic and truthful facts? Nope. He keeps harping on about this non-issue, because apparently, he has nothing else to talk about in this campaign. And that's annoying to voters who like their candidates to discuss relevant, topical issues that actually matter. And, not surprisingly to THIS Mass. native, that's most all voters in Massachusetts as confirmed by the most recent
Suffolk University Poll:
Results for the following two questions were identical:
Warren is telling the truth about being part Native American:
Believe she did NOT benefit by listing herself as a minority at Harvard:
YES 49 %
NO 28 %
Not sure 23%
More importantly, Mass. voters believe:
Do you think Warren's Native American heritage listing is a significant story?
NO 69%
YES 27%
OOPSY Scott. Better think of something else to talk about, because it looks like Massachusetts voters haven't left their brains at home this year:
The February poll showed Brown leading Warren 49 to 40.
Now they are virtually tied with Brown 48, Warren 47.
Worse for Brown than all of the above poll results, Warren has relentlessly been pounding away at the recent problem with Scott's approach, as her spokesman summarizes:
Republican Senator Brown is shamelessly attempting to divert attention from his record on the issues that really matter in this election, like the cost of student loans,”
and the result will be that Brown should be behind Warren in the next round of polls. If he has nothing else to talk about, he will deservedly lose. And Mass. voters know this.
They actually have brains!