Elizabeth Warren's "Pocahontas" Problem?

[Kevin]

What's the deal over this issue about MA Senatorial candidate Elizabeth Warren and her having Native American heritage over the past couple of days? From what I make over it(having done much reading due to time constraints) she used this unfairly gain advantage's throughout her academic career? Which is a pretty serious allegation if true.

I also find it curious that I haven't read anything about this controversy on the forum, from what I can see that is. Prob due to the possibility that left-wing hacks who dominate this site don't want it to get in the way of their hard on's about Warren.

So what is this controversy really about? Or did I hit the nail on the head with my assumption?

[DrScholl]

She provided proof of her ancestry and it was really the university that listed her as being a minority in their directories. It hasn't been mentioned, because it's non-factor and it makes me think that Brown is in for more of a struggle than previously thought. If he pushes this, he's going to end up in the Blanche Lincoln-Rick Santorum Club.

[tpfkaw]

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You know who else has a Cherokee great-great-great grandmother?  Yours truly, and everyone else with at least one parent from the Lower Midwest.  I've never even *considered* actually representing myself as "Native American" on college/job applications etc., because that's first of all pretty dishonest and second of all I would've thought there's no way it could actually work.  Apparently it can, laughably enough - maybe I should put it on my grad school application along with my essay about how whitey keeps me down.

[bgwah]

I'd like to think Kevin is actually just a skilled troll, but I've been reading his posts long enough to know that's not the case...

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Jindell and Rick Perry have Native American roots and when a Democrat has it, it is a net negative but they are prez material.

[tpfkaw]

Jindell and Rick Perry have Native American roots and when a Democrat has it, it is a net negative but they are prez material.

They didn't exploit it for career gain.  (Also it's somewhat more recent, I believe).

[Kevin]

Jindell and Rick Perry have Native American roots and when a Democrat has it, it is a net negative but they are prez material.

Rick Perry never discussed having Native blood let alone try to exploit it for career gain.

"Jindell" as in Bobby Jindal having Nave American heritage? That's news to me!?

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

You have to consider that Brown is a puppet of people and things considerably less liked in Massachusetts than Barack Obama.

That being the case, this could be anything from a mild net negative for Warren to a serious net negative for Brown depending upon how it's spun and who decides to push it how much, and the first is probably somewhat more likely than the second.

[Beet]

I don't care about "cheating" a system that is unjust to begin with - race-based affirmative action. In any case what she wrote is technically correct. This shouldn't be a big deal.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

I don't care about "cheating" a system that is unjust to begin with - race-based affirmative action. In any case what she wrote is technically correct. This shouldn't be a big deal.

There are some people who will care strongly if this is roughly as the right here is painting it, but many of them likely won't be voting for Brown anyway. Any problem for Warren will be to a significant degree a matter of turnout (which was also a large part of Coakley's problem), and that could indeed end up being a problem, but it's somewhat less likely in a Presidential year.

[tpfkaw]

I don't care about "cheating" a system that is unjust to begin with - race-based affirmative action. In any case what she wrote is technically correct. This shouldn't be a big deal.

There are some people who will care strongly if this is roughly as the right here is painting it, but many of them likely won't be voting for Brown anyway. Any problem for Warren will be to a significant degree a matter of turnout (which was also a large part of Coakley's problem), and that could indeed end up being a problem, but it's somewhat less likely in a Presidential year.

I, for one, am getting increasingly tempted to vote for Brown (as opposed to writing in Carla Howell or something) for the sole purpose of keeping Warren out.  This is also absolutely *not* going to play well in Southie or Quincy or Worcester or anyplace else where folks "work for a living."  The Herald should take this and run with it.

I don't care about "cheating" a system that is unjust to begin with - race-based affirmative action. In any case what she wrote is technically correct. This shouldn't be a big deal.

Awesome!  Harvard, here I come!

[morgieb]

What's wrong with this anyway?

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Complete and total non-issue.

[Fuzzybigfoot]

lol "hard on's" lol.

[Ogre Mage]

This "controversy" has no relevance to the policy issues at stake in this campaign.  Warren is trying to run a campaign on the issues.  Brown mostly seems to ramble on about blah blah "Harvard Elitist" these days.

[Mechaman]

lol "hard on's" lol.

A discussion on Massachusetts isn't complete without it.

[krazen1211]

Pocohontas Warren's grandpa had high cheekbones!

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/warren-my-grandfather-had-high-cheekbones-all-indians-do_643103.html

Speaking to a reporter on a local news station in Boston, Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts cited her ancestor's "high cheekbones" (quoting an aunt) as evidence of her Native American heritage:

Earlier today, the Harvard law professor explained that she listed herself as "Native American" on school directories in the past so she could meet others "who are like I am." Genealogists have been unable to verify that Warren is descended from Native Americans, despite her claims.




Lol! Keep digging, lizzy!

[Mechaman]

Is she really making this an issue?

I hope Brown isn't stupid enough to make a big deal about it, because damn this sh*t is stupid.

[DrScholl]

If this still is being pushed, Brown really is toast in this election, it's nothing but desperation. In 2010, when Richard Blumenthal made that Vietnam gaffe, it faded away remarkably and that was worse than this "scandal".

[RogueBeaver]

Warren's the one pushing it, not Brown. He should stay out of it.

[DrScholl]

He has not stayed out of this http://www.boston.com/Boston/politicalintelligence/2012/04/scott-brown-campaign-calls-elizabeth-warren-apologize-for-allowing-harvard-tout-her-native-american-warren-refuses/1Zl5ByWk5GvWgWx8fsAjLL/index.html

If he wasn't in trouble, this issue would have never come up at all, never.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Pocohontas Warren's grandpa had high cheekbones!

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/warren-my-grandfather-had-high-cheekbones-all-indians-do_643103.html

Speaking to a reporter on a local news station in Boston, Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts cited her ancestor's "high cheekbones" (quoting an aunt) as evidence of her Native American heritage:

Earlier today, the Harvard law professor explained that she listed herself as "Native American" on school directories in the past so she could meet others "who are like I am." Genealogists have been unable to verify that Warren is descended from Native Americans, despite her claims.




Lol! Keep digging, lizzy!

You use of course as always the very picture of a credible news source to back up your interpretation of events.

People from Oklahoma having somewhat...odd definitions of what constitutes the American Indian experience is of course completely unremarkable, but it is a little bit of a spectacle since she's running in Massachusetts. Like everything else that was supposed to sink her (or Brown, for that matter) so far this is overblown.

[Mechaman]

Pocohontas Warren's grandpa had high cheekbones!

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/warren-my-grandfather-had-high-cheekbones-all-indians-do_643103.html

Speaking to a reporter on a local news station in Boston, Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts cited her ancestor's "high cheekbones" (quoting an aunt) as evidence of her Native American heritage:

Earlier today, the Harvard law professor explained that she listed herself as "Native American" on school directories in the past so she could meet others "who are like I am." Genealogists have been unable to verify that Warren is descended from Native Americans, despite her claims.




Lol! Keep digging, lizzy!

You use of course as always the very picture of a credible news source to back up your interpretation of events.

People from Oklahoma having somewhat...odd definitions of what constitutes the American Indian experience is of course completely unremarkable, but it's a little bit of a spectacle since she's running in Massachusetts. Like everything else that was supposed to sink her (or Brown, for that matter) so far this is overblown.

Oh, I must've missed the Weekly Standard part.
God I feel stupid now.

Still though, this is an absurd non-issue that neither side should even touch.  I mean really, who in Mass f***ing cares about NA ancestry?  Want to win votes?  Bring up an immigration document saying your folks were practicing Catholics from County Wexford, not that they were Cherokee.  That would really f*** up Scott Brown.

But yeah, folks here have a very odd definition of "Native American" when it comes to the census here.  Everybody and their grandmother really.  Well except for me, for similar reasons as Wormyguy stated.

[tpfkaw]

"High cheekbones, like all the Indians have."

If a Republican in a high-profile Senate race had said this, it'd be all over the national news and there would be a big long thread in which all the liberals, Nathan included, would be yelling about how this is proof of how evil and hateful all Republicans are.  (Not that I like Republicans, but there *is* an *obvious* double standard).

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

She's something of a fool, for reasons that were relatively easy to divine already (this weird combination of perceived intellectual elitism and vague bumpkinness that's come out in this situation). She's not, in and of this specifically, made herself a worse Senate candidate than Scott Brown, if only because we would have a fool who would occasionally vote based on something other than the specific kind of corporate propping-up that I find most objectionable (I'm not naive enough to believe there wouldn't be other kinds of corporate propping-up) rather than one who wouldn't.