Elizabeth Warren leads Scott Brown in a general election match-up

She's got spine!

Breaking news from the Elizabeth Warren campaign in MA:

The first independent poll since Elizabeth announced her candidacy was released today:

The poll, by Public Policy Polling, shows Elizabeth Warren leading Scott Brown 46%-44% in a potential general election match-up.

Working men and women all across Massachusetts are frustrated with Washington and want someone on their side. They know Elizabeth will fight for them in the United States Senate.

But we know there's still a long way to go before any votes are cast in this election, and polls will go up and down. So we need your help to capitalize on our early momentum and build a strong grassroots campaign for the long haul.

Click here to spread the word to your friends and family on Facebook -- and share the following message:

Elizabeth Warren leads Scott Brown 46-44 in the latest poll. Join Elizabeth's grassroots campaign today -- and join the fight for working families! http://elizabethwarren.com/announcement?sc=fbs.sp4117941

Or, send this tweet to your friends on Twitter:

Latest poll: @ElizabethForMA leads Scott Brown 46-44. Join her campaign for middle class families: http://elizabethwarren.com/announcement?sc=tws.sp4117941 Please RT!

People clearly responded to Elizabeth's call for Washington to stand on the side of working families as she traveled all across the state during her campaign kick-off last week. You could feel the energy and enthusiasm at every stop along the way.

What's important to Elizabeth is fighting for middle class families and changing the rules in Washington so working people in Massachusetts can get ahead.

Thousands of people like you across Massachusetts -- and across the country -- have joined Elizabeth to continue the fight on behalf of working families.

Now we need more people to stand up and fight, too.

Click here to share the news on Facebook or post on Twitter -- and help us build a strong grassroots campaign that can win on Election Day.

Thank you,

Doug Rubin
Senior Advisor
Elizabeth for MA

Progressive ideas off the table during 2012 campaign debates?

Blogging at the Christian Science Monitor, Robert Reich offers a disheartening forecast of the coming 2012 presidential race between either Romney or Perry and incumbent Obama (emphases mine):

Whether it’s Romney or Perry, he’s sure to attack everything Obama has done or proposed. And Obama, for his part, will have to defend his positions and look for ways to counterpunch.

Hence, the parameters of public debate for the next fourteen months.

Within these narrow confines progressive ideas won’t get an airing. Even though poverty and unemployment will almost surely stay sky-high, wages will stagnate or continue to fall, inequality will widen, and deficit hawks will create an indelible (and false) impression that the nation can’t afford to do much about any of it – proposals to reverse these trends are unlikely to be heard.

Neither party’s presidential candidate will propose to tame CEO pay, create more tax brackets at the top and raise the highest marginal rates back to their levels in the 1950s and 1960s (that is, 70 to 90 percent), and match the capital-gains rate with ordinary income.

You won’t hear a call to strengthen labor unions and increase the bargaining power of ordinary workers.

Read more:

The White House is a boys’ club!!?

Jon Favreau, Obama's head speechwriter on the left.

Tennessee Guerilla Women has the scoop:

Here's a surprise. According to a new book - by journalist Ron Suskind - the White House is a boys' club! The White House is a "hostile workplace" for women.

In that hostile boys' club, women are routinely ignored and excluded. Wow. Who could have ever predicted such a thing?

The author names names in “Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President:”

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America wakes up: 1/3 say we’d be better off with Hillary

Survey: Clinton the most popular political figure in U.S.

Well, what do you know? A nation hypnotized by chanting “yes, we can” in 08 is finally coming out of its Obama-induced trance. Mackenzie Weinger at Politico reports:

It should have been you, Hillary.

In a case of serious buyer’s remorse, one-third of Americans say the United States would be better off if Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were president, according to a new poll Friday.

Clinton is the most popular national political figure in the country today, with 64 percent of Americans polled holding a favorable view of her, the Bloomberg poll shows.

And 34 percent say they think the U.S. would be in better shape if she had won the election over President Barack Obama.

Read more:

Elizabeth Warren announces her candidacy for MA Senate

Here's the news we've been waiting for:

How Team Obama plays the 2012 election game

The Hill’s Sam Youngman appears to be saying it’s just politics in his description of how Team Obama is maneuvering its man to win in 2012 – that would be the identical man that nearly the same team presented in 08 as the harbinger of the new politics.

So here’s  how Campaign 2012 is shaking out (highlights are mine):

 Youngman writes:

Sometimes it really doesn’t matter if you win or lose, it’s how you play the game. 

Team Obama is banking on it.

Because it’s like this: President Obama’s jobs bill isn’t going to pass right away.

And it won’t pass next week or likely even next month. 

And the dirty secret inside the White House is that while the jobs plan is what Obama really wants, he can live happily with the alternative — a fall battle that ends with Republicans voting against tax cuts for the middle class.

Because while Obama would love nothing more than another 1.9 million jobs, he feels like he can save his own job just by having the fight. And if he gets both the package and the fight over it, then Obama gets another four years at the White House. 

If that seems nakedly cynical for a man who promised hope and change, then welcome to the realities of reelection.

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Gov. Perry’s humble origins and his taste for lavish perks and travel

Well, thanks to Gov. Perry I could not have picked a better time to be reading "Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She?”  And I can’t resist quoting her yet again this morning. Before you go to Ken Vogel’s piece at Politico on the governor and his perks, prepare yourself by reading this little gem on page 14 of Ivins’ book:

Texas legislators are natty dressers and careful about their attire. One West Texas legislator who was possessed of the appropriate committee chairmanship had the Highway Department build a rest stop at the exact edge of his district on the highway leading to Austin. The brick structure, which cost the taxpayers several thou, was not erected so motorists would have a place to relieve themselves. It was put up so the legislator would have a place to stop and change his gators (alligator shoes) as he drove back into his district from the capital. He feared the home folks would think he was gettin’ too toney if they saw him in his gators ‘stead of his boots.

Okay, now read this selection from Vogel’s piece and imagine how much fun Ivins would’ve had with the governor’s candidacy for the GOP nomination for president of these United States:

Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s humble origins and down home straight talk are central to his political identity, but for years Perry has enjoyed lavish perks and travel – mostly funded by a group of deep-pocketed supporters – that are allowed under his state’s lax ethics and campaign rules.

Some of the same Texas donors who have funded Perry’s political rise also have footed the bills for Perry and his family to jet around the world, stay in luxury hotels and resorts, vacation in tony Colorado ski towns, attend all manner of sporting events and concerts, and to maintain, entertain – and even pay the cable bill – at the 4,600-square-foot mansion with a heated pool that taxpayers are renting him at a cost of about $10,000 a month.

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