A Mother's Endorsement

Scott Brown's a handsome man. And he drives a really nice truck. There's something infinitely reassuring about a strong, smiling man driving a truck-- it speaks of the kind of love and security that arises from a thriving economy. Where jobs are plentiful, families are strong. Seeing a Scott Brown ad I always feel nostalgic--when I was little there was nothing that made me happier than the chance to ride shotgun with my dad on a trip to the dump and the hardware store.

It's because I want my grandchildren to have that same security that I'll be voting for Elizabeth Warren on Tuesday. We don't live in the world suggested by Scott Brown's truck anymore, and nostalgia won't get us back there. Families are managing by cobbling part-time jobs together, with little hope of saving for the future, of lifting their children into better lives. We need a real leader to help us find the way to achieve that stability again.

Elizabeth Warren is an expert on bankruptcy law, a professor at Harvard. and the author of (among others) "The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers are Going Broke". Her Senate candidacy is based in a nuts and bolts understanding of how our economy works. Her experience on the National Bankruptcy Commission and as an adviser to the FDIC inform her, as does her experience as a mother, and a teacher of children with disabilities.

She is extraordinarily articulate, able to say things outright that others only half-understand, and so, able to deflate popular misunderstandings and move the general discourse to a deeper level. The best example of this is her insistent reminder that no man or woman is "self-made"; that we need good government. She is the deserving heir to Senator Edward Kennedy's senate seat. There she will carry on his decades of thoughtful effort on behalf of this state-- studying the issues, finding ways to go forward socially and economically.

We need her heart and her mind to address the issues in front of us--as it is we seem to be at the mercy of a kind of corporate greed that is hard even to fathom. She is fighting that now, as money from out of state pours into Scott Brown's campaign. Who can blame businesses for wanting to deep-six the candidacy of the woman Time Magazine has called one of "the new sheriffs of Wall Street."? Brown is using that money to take cheap shots at Warren, not to reveal a vision for the Commonwealth or the nation. It's Warren who has reckoned with fiscal reality and found ways to move the country, and the many different families the country is made up of, forward. If you want a really powerful truck, and your kids piling confidently in, looking to the future with hope and excitement, you'd be wise to vote for Elizabeth Warren.

The Two Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke