Brown, 52, was responding to a crack Warren made in Tuesday’s Democratic debate, when she was asked how she paid for college, given that Brown used his centerfold spread in Cosmopolitan magazine decades ago to cover the cost. Warren, 62, quipped, “I didn’t take my clothes off.’’
Asked by the WZLX disc jockey to respond to her remark, Brown said, “Thank God,’’eliciting laughter from the DJ.
Democrats were quick to pounce, deriding his comments as “frat house humor.’’ Warren herself deflected questions when speaking to reporters outside a union event in Quincy later in the day.
“You know, I’ll survive a few jabs from Scott Brown over my appearance,’’ she said.
In an e-mail after the radio interview, Brown’s campaign tried to turn the tables, casting Warren as the attacker.
“It’s elitist of Professor Warren to look down at the decisions Scott Brown made to put himself through college and rise above the circumstances of his life,’’ campaign manager Jim Barnett said. “Scott has fought and scraped for everything he’s got.’’
But after that initial retort, Brown appeared again on talk radio last night and labeled his earlier comment a joke. His staff also issued statements from two female Senators, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Susan Collins of Maine, defending Brown.
Warren, a Harvard professor and former Obama administration official, is seen as the Democratic front-runner in an election that has quickly attracted national interest. Democrats, surprised by Brown’s 2010 special election victory, see the Massachusetts contest as a rare opportunity to pick up a seat.
Both sides are expecting an expensive and potentially nasty fight. But Brown’s remarks, perhaps unwittingly trained the spotlight on gender early on in the election cycle.
“Women are always subject to tougher scrutiny’’ of their appearance, said Kara Miller, a University of Massachusetts Dartmouth English professor who specializes in culture and politics and also writes a blog for Boston.com.
“That’s always so much more of an issue for a woman, be it Sarah Palin or Hillary Clinton, than it is for a man.’’
