A Fighting Chance

$221 in new business activity: See NIH report: “It has been estimated that every $1 of NIH funding generates about $2.21 in local economic growth. Also, discoveries arising from NIH-funded research serve as a foundation for the entire U.S. biomedical industry. Long considered the world’s leader in innovation, that vital sector exports an estimated $90 billion in goods and services annually and employs 1 million U.S. citizens with wages totaling an estimated $84 billion,” http://www.nih.gov/about/impact/economy.htm.

half what it was when I was growing up: According to the NSF, federally funded R&D as a percent of GDP ranged from 1.74 to 1.92 percent from 1961 to 1968. By 2011, this figure was .89 percent, or less than half at the peak during my childhood. See “Table 1. Gross domestic product and research and development (total, federally funded, nonfederal): 1953–2011.” Available at http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf13318/pdf/tab01.pdf.

is a boys’ game: Marla Romash, who has done incredible work helping women candidates get elected, just laughed when she read the nonsense. Stay steady, she would advise, and win. People like tough women—they just may not know it yet.

“looking like the head of the PTA”: David Boeri, “Warren Takes Her Campaign on the Road,” WBUR.org, September 15, 2011.

Britney Schultz, “Elizabeth Warren Announces Senate Run,” Truthout, September 14, 2011.

paid a generation earlier: For more data on the increase in the cost of a college education, see Sandy Baum and Jennifer Ma, “Trends in College Pricing 2013,” College Board, October 23, 2013. Over the thirty years from 1983–84 to 2013–14, average published tuition and fees at private nonprofit four-year institutions rose by 153 percent, from $11,909 (in 2013 dollars) to $30,094. The average published price at public two-year colleges rose by 164 percent, from $1,235 (in 2013 dollars) to $3,264, while the increase for in-state students at public four-year institutions was 231 percent, from $2,684 to $8,893.

This has helped fuel the enormous rise in student loan debt. See “Total Student Loan Debt, Q1 1999 to Q1 2011,” Demos, http://www.demos.org/data-byte/total-student-loan-debt-q1-1999-q1-2011.

“what about transgender?”: Over the years, the Human Rights Campaign and many other organizations have fought to raise awareness around issues that affect transgender people. I am proud to work alongside them.

“widely debunked by independent fact checkers”: “During the 2010 elections, Crossroads GPS, the group cofounded by Karl Rove, spent millions and millions of dollars blanketing airwaves across the country with ads full of falsehoods and distortions that were widely debunked by independent fact checkers. Now that’s happening again—only if anything, this time the distortions are even more brazen, and the sleaze factor is even higher.” Greg Sargent, “Rove-Founded Group Again Blanketing Airwaves with Falsehoods, Distortions, and Sleaze,” Plum Line (blog), Washington Post, November 10, 2011. See also FactCheck.org: “A group with ties to Karl Rove sends viewers ashtray in a $2 million ad campaign attacking Democratic Senate candidates in Pennsylvania, California and Kentucky. The ads make badly misleading claims about the health care legislation that those Democrats supported.” “Misdirection from Crossroads GPS,” August 30, 2010, http://www.factcheck.org/2010/08/misdirection-from-crossroads-gps/.

Since Rove’s donor list was secret: See Matea Gold, “Secret Donors Pour Millions of Dollars into Crossroads GPS,” Los Angeles Times, April 17, 2012. Factcheck.org also reports: “Crossroads GPS is organized as a 501(c)(4) under the federal tax code and thus, unlike its parent group, isn’t required to disclose its donors—though it says on its website there are “no limits” to the amount of money it will accept from U.S. corporations (or unions, for that matter). Officially, the full name of the group is Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies.” See http://www.factcheck.org/2010/08/mis direction-from-crossroads-gps/.

attacks on the police, and heavy drugs: To see the ad, see Crossroads GPS: “Foundation,” MA, November 9, 2011, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNxez4ddpa0. The attention was strong and immediate. See Zeke Miller, “Karl Rove–Backed Group Unveils Vicious Ad Against Elizabeth Warren and the ‘Occupy’ Protesters,” Business Insider, November 11, 2011. See also Brendan Fischer, “Rove’s Crossroads GPS Attacks Occupy Movement, Elizabeth Warren,” PR Watch, November 11, 2011. See also Steve LeBlanc, “National PAC Launches Anti-Elizabeth Warren Ad,” Boston Globe, November 10, 2011. For my first television ad, see Lucy Madison, “In First TV Ad, Elizabeth Warren Blasts Wall St., Pledges to Even Playing Field,” CBS News, November 14, 2011.

“we need jobs, not more bailouts”: Amy Bingham, “Ad Twists Elizabeth Warren’s Role as TARP Watchdog,” The Note (blog,) ABC News, December 8, 2011.