If Warren wants to race, she should leave the gate

OP-ED | Joan Vennochi

September 04, 2011|By Joan Vennochi, Globe Columnist

(John Tlumacki/Globe Staff )

BEFORE ELIZABETH Warren can burst anyone else’s bubble, she has to get out of her own.

On the lush backyard of a magnificent North Shore estate, a handpicked crowd of Democratic activists gathered recently to take their measure of the Harvard Law professor and consumer-rights advocate who is preparing to run for US Senate. According to one of those present, they pressed her repeatedly on a key concern: Is she tough enough to take on Republican Senator Scott Brown?

Of course, she said yes. But Warren’s true test begins when she leaves the safe haven of invitation-only meet-and-greets, and hits the live campaign trail. That’s when the political world finds out if she’s another Charlie Baker - great on paper, but not so great as a first-time candidate running against a charming incumbent. And before Warren gets to the general election, she first must win her party’s primary. A half-dozen other Democratic challengers have announced their candidacy or said they are weighing a primary run.

Warren is generating positive buzz from devout liberals who previously swooned over Michael Dukakis and Deval Patrick. But at least one powerful Democrat is openly skeptical about her chances. Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, who knows something about retail politics, said about Warren, “You have to to sell yourself to the people … The media can’t make you… You have to be out there and squeeze the flesh and see how they feel.’’

For the past few weeks, Warren has been squeezing the pre-selected flesh of grassroots activists across the state. Her carefully controlled roll-out is partly aimed at reassuring wary Democrats she’s not another Martha Coakley. Fairly or unfairly, that’s now shorthand for a female candidate who goes from tough, smart, accomplished primary victor to weak, out-of-touch loser of Ted Kennedy’s seat.

Ironically, one iconic moment that came to symbolize Coakley’s failed campaign occurred when the candidate made a crack suggesting she was not wild about standing in the cold shaking miscellaneous hands outside Fenway Park. Warren is shaking hands, but they have been anything but miscellaneous. Even her broader debut, at the Labor Day breakfast sponsored by unions, will address a traditional Democratic constituency.

“In the early stages, I don’t think it’s too much to ask for her to have some frank, direct, honest conversations, without microphones stuck in her face,’’ said Doug Rubin, the Democratic consultant Warren hired to run her campaign.

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