This
New York Times article by Abby Goodnough feels like a reporter trying very hard to
tarnish Elizabeth Warren's populist appeal.
BOSTON—Elizabeth Warren may be running for the United States Senate in Massachusetts, but her campaign is getting deep support 3,000 miles away in California, where the other day, Cher was speaking glowingly of Ms. Warren’s candidacy. [...]
Nearly 20 percent of Ms. Warren’s itemized donations (those over $200) in the last quarter of 2011 came from California, where a number of actors and others in the entertainment industry are fired up about her race against a first-term senator,Scott P. Brown, to reclaim for Democrats the seat long held by Edward M. Kennedy.
And Mr. Brown is seeking to use their enthusiasm against her.
Last Wednesday—the day before Skip Brittenham, an entertainment lawyer, and Heather Thomas, an actress, held a $500- to-$5,000-per-ticket fund-raiser for Ms. Warren at their home in Santa Monica—the Massachusetts Republican Party released a Web video in the style of an old movie trailer, with an announcer proclaiming, “Hollywood has a new ‘It Girl’—Hollywood has fallen for Elizabeth Warren big-time.”
Scott Brown is trying to make that case, and apparently Goodnough is willing to help, penning a lengthy article on her Hollywood support, not missing a chance to throw in the fact that Barbra Streisand likes Warren, too. The article does note that Brown has received out-of-state donations, too, but doesn't mention where the core of Brown's support comes from. According to Open Secrets,
Wall Street wins the Brown financing race, by a mile.
He's also the top recipient of donations from business associations, hedge funds, the insurance industry, venture capital, and the second favorite of business services, private equity firms, investment firms and securities firms. So it's a handful of Hollywood residents versus Wall Street. On this one, I give it to
Cher.
Asked whether she thought support from celebrities like herself might hurt Ms. Warren, Cher—who compared Ms. Warren to Paul Revere—replied: “How do you bring somebody that good down?”
Yet she added that to counter such criticism, Ms. Warren could “totally say, ‘You know, Cher’s not my idea of someone who should support me.’”
“If she had to say that,” Cher said, “I’d say, ‘I don’t care.’”
Spoken like someone to whom a senator would absolutely not be beholden. Unlike, say, a
a financial services lobbyist.
Please, contribute $7 to Elizabeth Warren on Orange to Blue.
