A Fighting Chance

For my campaign’s response, Kyle Sullivan noted that I had been “an outspoken critic of the bank bailout and its blank check to Wall Street.… The Wall Street bankers financing these attacks are desperate to stop Elizabeth Warren because she’s worked so hard to stop Wall Street from ripping off middle class families.” Lucy Madison, “Crossroads: Elizabeth Warren Responsible for Bank Bailouts,” CBS News, December 8, 2011.

an environmental group had already gone after: The League of Conservation Voters made a $1.9 million ad buy in the Boston media market in late October 2011, criticizing Brown for his votes to support Big Oil. See Joshua Miller, “Environmental Group Buys Ads Against Scott Brown (VIDEO),” Roll Call, October 25, 2011. See also David Catanese, “League Targets Brown on Big Oil,” Politico, October 25, 2011. Scott Brown hit back with a Web ad and an op-ed refuting some of the claims, arguing: “In reality, I have worked across the aisle on bipartisan legislation to protect our communities from harmful pollutants, to make our homes and businesses more energy-efficient and to begin to wean us off foreign oil.” See Luke Johnson, “Scott Brown Hits Back Against League of Conservation Voters ‘Gone Washington’ Ad,” Huffington Post, November 1, 2011.

“bless their hearts for trying”: Clare Malone, “What’s So ‘Super’ About Super PACs?,” American Prospect, February 8, 2012. Dan Eggen, “Scott Brown, Elizabeth Warren Pledge to Curb Outside Campaign Spending,” Washington Post, January 23, 2012. Manu Raju, “Elizabeth Warren, Scott Brown Settle on Super PAC Pledge,” Politico, January 23, 2012.

“respect the People’s Pledge”: “LCV Responds to People’s Pledge Agreed to by Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown,” League of Conservation Voters, January 23, 2012, http://www.lcv.org/media/press-releases/LCV-Responds-to-People-s-Pledge-Agreed-to-by-Elizabeth-Warren-and-ScottBrown.html.

“forklifts of paperwork through”: Abby Goodnough and Jess Bidgood, “Massachusetts Senate Candidates Look to Limit Outside Advertising,” The Caucus (blog) New York Times, January 23, 2012.

plagiarizing my own book: Hunter Walker, “National Review Apologizes for Accusing Elizabeth Warren of Plagiarism,” Politicker.com, May 18, 2012; “National Review’s Elizabeth Warren Plagiarism Claim Quickly Debunked,” Huffington Post, May 19, 2012.

hated people who drank beer: Devra First, “The Food-Culture Wars,” Dishing (blog), Boston.com, April 13, 2012.

gun violence every day: For more on gun-related deaths, see Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, http://www.bradycampaign.org/?q=about-gun-violence.

Statistics were compiled using the most recent data available from CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control’s Web-Based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting for years 2008–2010.

See also “We Can Do Better: Protect Children Not Guns 2013,” The Children’s Defense Fund, July 24, 2013, http://www.childrensdefense.org/child-research-data-publications/data/protect-children-not-guns-2013.pdf, 60.

including the Harvard hiring committee: “… Officials involved in [Warren’s] hiring at Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Texas and the University of Houston Law Center all said that she was hired because she was an outstanding teacher, and that her lineage was either not discussed or not a factor.” Katharine Q. Seelye and Abby Goodnough, “Candidate for Senate Defends Past Hiring,” New York Times, April 30, 2012.

Professor Charles Fried from Harvard Law School, who had served as solicitor general under Ronald Reagan and was a registered Republican and an avowed Scott Brown supporter in 2010, came forward to identify himself as the head of the committee that hired me at Harvard, saying that the suggestion that Warren “attained her position and maintains her reputation on anything other than her evident merit is complete nonsense.” Catalina Camia, “Harvard Professor: Elizabeth Warren Got Job on Merits,” USA Today, May 7, 2012.