Harvard University law professor and financial expert Elizabeth Warren launched her Democratic campaign for a Massachusetts Senate seat on Wednesday at the Broadway T station in South Boston.
In the aftermath of the global economic crisis, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid appointed Warren to the Congressional Oversight Panel to head up the $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program, according to a New York Times article.
However, Warren resigned in 2010 to help start the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a federal agency in charge of protecting consumer rights and preventing fraud, according to a pamphlet distributed to passersby outside the T stop.
“I wasn’t there as an insider,” Warren said in an interview, referring to her position on the COP. “I was the one who was really trying to hold some folks accountable and [I] made a lot of people very unhappy.
I wasn’t held by any powerful interest, I wasn’t held by any party. I got out there and did what I thought was right. And I’m going to keep on doing that. I don’t know anything else to do.”
Warren said that she is “working on middle class issues, start to finish.”
After President Barack Obama chose Attorney General of Ohio Richard Cordray to serve as director of the Bureau, Warren formed an exploratory campaign committee on Aug. 18, according to Warren’s website. Twenty-seven days later, she has embarked on her journey to the primary Senate elections on Sept. 18, 2012.
As Warren spoke to a crowd of voters and spectators, her spokesman Kyle Sullivan said she would be moving across the state to meet the people of Massachusetts.
“She’s going to be telling them her story,” Sullivan said. “She worked her way through public school and college. She’s fought for the middle
class for the past three decades.”
With Democratic opponents such as Newton Mayor Setti Warren and State Rep. Tom Conroy to face in next year’s primary elections, Elizabeth
Warren is not yet Sen. Scott Brown’s official opponent.
However, her campaign staff said they hope her experience and stance against Wall Street will win her votes.
“She knows how to work in Washington,” said Warren campaign volunteer Marie Marshall. “She’s fought tirelessly against Wall Street and big
business. She knows how to work with a president, or any president.”
“Warren will make the case that Washington is broken right now,” Sullivan added. Harvard junior Emmanuel Nathan said Warren has the most potential to
beat Sen. Brown in the general election.
“The primary is still to be won but it is better if Warren is in the race,” Nathan said. “The people of Mass. would want her represented versus Sen. Brown’s policies.”
Kathryn Kinzel attended Warren’s meet-and-greet on her way to work at the Brigham Women’s Hospital. Although she was familiar with Warren –
“I knew she was big with consumer rights,” Kinzel said – she wanted to see her up close.
“I sort of wanted to see who she was as a person,” Kinzel said. “I wanted to get the pull of the things she’s said and see what her
character was like.”
Warren traveled across South Boston, New Bedford, Framingham, Worchester and Springfield on Wednesday. She will be in Lowell and
Gloucester today.
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