Warren walks fine line on Occupy movement

Warren’s anti-Wall Street rhetoric has paralleled almost perfectly many of the grievances voiced by protesters in New York, Boston, and elsewhere. The striking similarities suggest Warren could become the first senator whose candidacy is driven by the emerging Occupy Wall Street movement, just as Florida Republican senate candidate Marco Rubio was propelled by the Tea Party in 2010.

But Warren’s relationship with the Occupy Wall Street movement has been hard to pin down. She has embraced it to the extent that it comports with her message. Yet she has been careful to avoid public images of herself among the tents and has stopped short of taking the protesters’ side during occasional clashes with police.

Warren has visited the tent city in Boston just once, without advertising it on her public schedule, avoiding television cameras in a highly unpredictable environment. Her top opponent for the Democratic nomination, Alan Khazei, beat her to Dewey Square by almost two weeks.

In an interview published yesterday on the Daily Beast website, Warren took her most aggressively supportive tone to date, claiming substantial credit for the writings and views that Occupy Wall Street protests have amplified across the country.

“I created much of the intellectual foundation for what they do,’’ she told the website. “I support what they do.’’

But in an interview Friday with the Globe, she answered less forcefully when asked whether she considered herself part of the movement.

“I’ve been speaking out against Wall Street for a very long time,’’ she said.

“I’m not going to stop,’’ she continued. “That is the movement.’’

She also emphasized that the demonstrators must respect the rule of law.

Warren spoke at length about her encounter with a police officer who was guarding the protest. The officer, she said, told her that he sympathized with the protesters because he was also part of the “99 percent’’ of Americans who are not among the wealthy.

Warren recalled how the officer said he wanted to “coach the protesters to make sure they were doing it in a way that stayed within the law.’’