TIMOTHY NOAH OCTOBER 3, 2011
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A new poll of 1,005 registered Massachusetts voters conducted Sept. 22-28 shows Elizabeth Warren in a statistical dead heat with Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, 38-41. That's pretty remarkable considering the fact that 37 percent of those polled still don't know who she is. The Boston Herald poll follows a Public Policy Polling survey released Sept. 20 that also showed her in a statistical dead heat, in that instance with a slight edge, 46-44. Just a few weeks earlier Brown was leading Warren by nine points.
How is the Massachusetts GOP responding to this emergency? By asking Harvard to dump Warren. Warren is teaching at Harvard Law School while she runs, and that's unethical, the Bay State Republicans claim. "For Harvard to continue to employ her as a candidate is inconsistent with the academic mission of the college; detracts from the work that she would be expected to perform as a member of the faculty; and creates the impression that Harvard endorses, supports and is in fact subsidizing her campaign," Nate Little, executive director of the Massachusetts Republican party, wrote in a letter to Harvard President Drew Faust, according to a Sept. 22 report in the Harvard Crimson. The Boston Globe seems to half-agree. In a Sept. 20 story, it reported, "Professors rarely run for major offices, and when they do, they typically drop their academic positions." John Silber, the Globe said, took a leave of absence as president of Boston University when he ran for governor in 1990, and President Obama stopped teaching law at the University of Chicago when he ran for Senate in 1994. A "rare exception" is Robert Reich, who was teaching at Brandeis while he ran for Massachusetts governor in 2002.
But had the Globe looked back a little further, it would have discovered that Daniel Patrick Moynihan continued teaching at least one class at Harvard during the fall of 1976 while he was running for Senate in an entirely different state. I know because I audited it. I was a freshman and curious about Moynihan, who had just completed a controversial term as U.N. ambassador. The class was about public policy and it was full of interesting and funny stories about his time in government and I was a little bit star-struck. In one of them he commented that Ralph Nader had started an important citizen's movement even though he was completely wrong about the Corvair. In another he talked about mayors during the summer of 1967 or 1968 begging the White House for federal money because, they said, they were sure their city would erupt that summer in riots, and Moynihan recalled saying, "if you're sure you'll have riots then we aren't going to waste money on you. We only want to give money to cities where riots might be preventable." Once a TV cameraman poked a lens through the door of the Harvard Hall lecture room and Moynihan bellowed, "OUT!" Moynihan won the New York Senate race in November. I can't remember whether he continued to show up for class or whether he roped in a substitute at that point. I think maybe after election day I lost interest, or got more caught up in the classes I was actually taking for credit.
Anyway, that strikes me as more than sufficient precedent for Warren to keep teaching contract law.
33 comments
Well, obviously. Scott Brown strikes me as the kind of candidate who doesn't particularly benefit from keeping the question of intellect salient, so a readily available anchoring like "[opponent X] teaches at Harvard" hurts his chances. At least in Massachusetts. At least I hope so.
- SEBASTIANSALING@HOTMAIL.COM
October 3, 2011 at 10:19am
I think the GOP's only interest here is in generating headlines containing "Elizabeth Warren" and "Harvard". That sort of thing clearly works nationally. We will see if association with Harvard is poison in Massachusetts too. I don't see any reason or need to tar Scott Brown as dumb though. I see no evidence of that.
- boyski
October 3, 2011 at 10:27am
She teaches contracts? As in offer, acceptance, consideration, promissory estoppel, and all that? Definitely not as interesting as the Corvair. Nader was right and Moynihan wrong about the Corvair, a rear-engine vehicle about as stable as Ms. Palin. Nader spoke at my college on his book tour (Unsafe at Any Speed), and I will never forget the response when he asked students with family members or close friends who had been killed or seriously injured in an autombile accident to raise their hands. Yep, everybody raised their hands. Thousands of them. Never felt the same about autmobiles again. Nader also had another effective speaking technique. He would repeat sentences or phrases, several times. Nader is a Harvard law grad. He worked for Moynihan in the Labor Department. Don't believe he ever taught at Harvard. In later years he too seems about as stable as the Corvair that he condemned.
- rayward
October 3, 2011 at 10:36am
This is a preposterous demand, but I am not surprised that it is being made. Good to see you so early, Timothy.
- liberalref
October 3, 2011 at 10:42am
Rayward: no, Moynihan was right about the Corvair, and Nader was wrong--at least about the later model Corvairs which had been redesigned to rectify the problems Nader later identified. The real car of the era that was abysmally unsafe, well underperforming the Corvair in crash tests, was the Volkswagen Beetle. But Nader saw no point in trying to bring down a small foreign carmaker when he could take on one of the biggest corporations on Earth.
- benjamin81
October 3, 2011 at 10:44am
"...the Corvair, a rear-engine vehicle about as stable as Ms. Palin" LOL. Rayward for the win!
- Tristan
October 3, 2011 at 10:50am
Warren should be allowed to finish the semester at Harvard. It wouldn't be fair to the students who signed up for her classes weeks or months ago. By Christmas break, she should suspend her Harvard work and focus on the campaign, not necessarily because of perceived conflicts of interest or because an outside organization demands it, but because she should demonstrate a commitment to the office and learning all the issues & administrative requirements of holding it. I'm more perturbed when an elected official spends time writing & publishing a book when he/she should be busy governing or legislating. (Ahem, Govs. Perry, Haley, & Rubio. And young Senator Obama, to a lesser extent. I'm sure there are other guilty Democrats, too, but I can't think of any at the moment.) Longtime public servants (Then-Senator Biden writing Promises to Keep, etc..) get a pass from me on this, but there's no way a first term governor should be negotiating book deals & pumping out 500 pages of non-legislative prose in his/her spare time. They shouldn't have spare time. A candidate shouldn't be held to a higher standard by the same party that champions those Tea Party governor-authors.
- Konstantin
October 3, 2011 at 11:02am
Fortunately, the only people who hate Warren (Republicans) probably hate Harvard even more. So hopefully their stupid demands have very little weight with Harvard. Harvard could respond by asking the Tea-Party to quit bothering Chris Christie already, he's made his position clear.
- AllanL5
October 3, 2011 at 11:45am
When (and if) she wins the Democratic primary then she should leave her position, but the GOP is just being ridiculous, right now she is not running for Senate she is running for the Democratic party nomination which is none of the GOP's damn business. Assholes.
- blackton
October 3, 2011 at 11:54am
this story would be so much more interesting if Larry Summers were still president of Harvard University, but the really interesting story is, of course, Timmy's recollections of Professor Moynihan in 1976...instead of at least noting if Professor Warren has actually returned to teaching any classes after her two years working in Washington. Just curious. I have the highest regard for Prof. Warren since hearing her speak in 2002 after writing about the "Two-Income Trap".
- K2K
October 3, 2011 at 12:07pm
rayward: "She teaches contracts? As in offer, acceptance, consideration, promissory estoppel, and all that? Definitely not as interesting as the Corvair." I don't know about that. I was in her contracts class (before she went to Harvard) and she made the subject pretty darn interesting. By contrast, I find cars as dull as dishwater.
- dsimon
October 3, 2011 at 12:28pm
Blackie, I think you have, by far, the most succinct comments on this site.
- NR409654
October 3, 2011 at 12:39pm
ssaling, your hopes are not without answer. As I've mentioned before, I've lived in MA essentially my entire life and we tend not to care so much about identity politics: the much-maligned 'elites' or even 'out-of-touch Beacon Hill bureaucrats' as the local Republicans would say (Beacon Hill is an affluent area of Boston and also the home of the State House). Hell, we elected Ted Kennedy decade after decade and he's the very definition of an 'elite'. Due to the fact that we have so many colleges and universities (and therefore graduates), education is largely seen as a plus unless you also take a condescending attitude about it or can't bring yourself to be among the common man. Elizabeth Warren clearly does neither of these things.
- tealeaves
October 3, 2011 at 12:55pm
Yet again we get mush from the leftward (except on taxes) rayward. There is substantial evidence that the Corvair was as safe as its competitors at the time, maybe slightly safer. In the early 1970s, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration came to this conclusion, as did a Texas A&M study around the same time. Car and Driver magazine was critical of Nader's contention, too. So once again, we have the demagogue Ralph Nader arrayed against hard empirical evidence. Tris, that line would be funny if it were accurate, but it's not, so it's not.
- liberalref
October 3, 2011 at 1:18pm
Blackton: I just read Jonathan Chait's take on the opposition to Chris Christie becoming president because of his weight. He wrote that the only reason he can see for such opposition is that "American elites view obesity with disgust" and he averred that this is "not a very attractive sentiment." Well-said, J. Chait, What part of that don't you understand, b.?
- liberalref
October 3, 2011 at 1:30pm
Tealeaves, you took the words right out of my mouth. The Massachusetts GOP is simply out of ideas. Back in July they filed an ethics complaint against Newton Mayor Setti Warren (no relation to Elizabeth Warren), who was then running to unseat Scott Brown...
Setti Warren has since quit the race after Elizabeth Warren's entry sucked all the air out of the room. I think the Mass GOP's playbook is to raise questions about the Dem candidate's personal integrity and create the impression that they are a part of a corrupt political machine that can't be trusted. Same playbook Romney use when he ran for Governor. By the way, how come TNR hasn't said anything about Occupy Wall Street? Is there some kind of a gag order in place?- wkwami
October 3, 2011 at 2:05pm
libref are you on the wrong thread? In any case, as long as Rush Limbaugh (!!!!!!!!) gets to call Michelle Obama (!!!!!!!!) "Moo-chelle", I would say that fat bias or whatever isn't limited to the elites.
- miceelf
October 3, 2011 at 2:13pm
Nader could have chosen Lucky Strike cigarettes as a menace to public health. Lucky Strikes, why Lucky Strikes you ask, when we all know that it's all cigarettes that are a menace to public health. Ah, but it wasn't just the Corvair that was a death trap, it was all automobiles the way they were designed and constructed in the 1950s and 1960s. Did Nader believe everybody drove a Corvair when he asked the students at my college to raise their hands if they had family members or close friends who had been killed or seriously injured in an autombile accident. Nader's technique was to use the specific, a Corvair, which had a history of instability (i.e., rollovers) (probably because people drove them like a sportscar they weren't), to focus the public's attention on the larger issue of unsafe automobiles, all automobiles. It was very effective, and for that, we can all be thankful. Though maybe not Corvair enthusiasts.
- rayward
October 3, 2011 at 2:17pm
dsimon, all I remember about my contracts professor was that he was fat, bald, and had a high pitched voice. It's funny what we do remember almost 40 years later. My civil procedure professor was renowned for his knowledge of the federal rules, and had a lucrative part-time (some students said full-time) practice devoted exclusively to that arcane subject. His lectures were often self-congratulatory war stories detailing how he used his knowledge of the rules to avoid justice (or so it seemed, his clients almost always the deep pocket corporation seeking to avoid trial at most any cost, including the professor's very high fees). I also recall the professor who made me stand for much of the hour as he ridiculed me for using the term "apparently" in describing the court's judgment in some (now) obscure case when it was "my turn". I haven't used the term since, and I cringe whenever somebody else uses it, even more so that when someone uses the term "irregardless", the term some other hapless law student used leading to his humiliation. Hey, at least apparently is a word.
- rayward
October 3, 2011 at 2:45pm
rayward, you're absolutely correct about ALL American cars of the 1950s and 1960s being death traps. They had lousy suspensions, lousy brakes, lousy steering, and (for 1950s cars) vacuum wipers that stopped moving when you pressed on the accelerator pedal. I had a 1956 Chevy for while. When I tried to pass someone on the highway in the rain, my wipers stopped. Wonderful design! Anyway, I never understood why Nader singled out the Corvair for his book. He should have indicted the entire line of American-made cars. For what it's worth, I once gave Nader a ride in one of my later cars. I was working in the PR department of the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Nader was going to give some sort of address. So I picked him up at his hotel and drove him to the assembly hall. He was very personable. I had a lot of respect for Nader until his idiotic presidential candidacy in 2000 handed the election to George W. Bush. Now I think the guy is a lunatic.
- DAVIDDREIER@EARTHLINK.NET-old
October 3, 2011 at 3:15pm
As a person running for Senate, I believe Elizabeth Warren should be bound by the conflict rules that apply to all Senators. She should collect campaign money from people who are directly affected by her votes. Or, instead, that money should be paid to a third party secretly (except that she Warren should be told about it --according the Supreme Court) so that it can be used to influence the voters in an election. Teaching a class while running for Senate --- I'm shocked, shocked shocked.
- Nusholtz
October 3, 2011 at 3:41pm
Have you ever heard of continuing debates across threads, mice? I have seen that many times here, and I have been a participant in such activity a few times myself.
- liberalref
October 3, 2011 at 4:01pm
Man. The Republicans must really be worried about her. Rock on, Elizabeth!
- Sophia
October 3, 2011 at 4:43pm
Libref, yes, although usually there is some statement or response in the given thread. Here I cound't find anything from rayward that you were responding to. I have also had the comments section gork up in such a way as people's comments ended up in places they didn't intend. Hence my question.
- miceelf
October 3, 2011 at 4:43pm
@Konstantin, do other professionals get a pass on the book thang? I'm writing a book (very slowly) in my spare time from doctoring. Seems to me that I am entitled to some spare time and that it's nobody else's business how I spend it. Are public officials different? If so, why?
- AaronW
October 3, 2011 at 4:49pm
wkwami, I love the sniping they do. They've been so marginalized for so long that they don't have any other recourse besides tune in to Howie Carr and imagine that the latest manufactured outrage will be the turning point. It must have been so very frustrating for them in 2010 to lose almost every single race in what promised to be a wave of red.
- tealeaves
October 3, 2011 at 5:16pm
Yes, Aaron, write away. As long as you're not scribbling during an intensive residency or during your first few months at a new hospital or new practice, I wouldn't judge. A governor in charge of a whole state, especially a new governor, seems less than committed to the job if he/she is spending more time with a word processor and a publishing agent than with constituents, legal experts, and legislators & legislative consultants. Publishing while in office is the worst kind of self-puffery, not because an autobiography is inherently flattering, but because it means the writer likely spent much of his/her time in a self-sealed bubble away from "average folk" & voters.
- Konstantin
October 3, 2011 at 5:53pm
Does anyone really believe that, with a couple of noteworthy exceptions, these politicians genuinely "write" their books in the normal sense of the term?
- ironyroad
October 3, 2011 at 6:59pm
I refuse to read anything supposedly written by *"Known Name" with "Unknown Author"*, like Going Rogue. That's a joke and a good way to lose all credibility in most cases. You're not fooling anyone with the smaller print.
- Konstantin
October 3, 2011 at 7:38pm
A Senate contest between Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren would be really interesting, except for all the Ron Paul fanatics (only yard signs I see out here in the western hills). at 2:05 pm: wkwami: "By the way, how come TNR hasn't said anything about Occupy Wall Street?" well, the title is not obvious, but it is still on the top banner since early this morning: "Three Babies, Four Dogs, Two Breasts, and no Radiohead: A Dispatch from Occupy Wall Street" Tonight, PBS Newshour had to rely on two reporters, from WNYC and dnainfo.com, and they had similar difficulty sorting out a protest with no leader and no demands. Meanwhile, the average rent for a 1-br in Manhattan has risen to more than $3,200 per month.
- K2K
October 3, 2011 at 10:30pm
I actually set the writing aside for six months to study for an intense, comprehensive professional examination in microbiology. (The Australians are big on hard-ass tests with a high failure rate that you can sit just once a year.) It didn't matter. I failed anyway. First test I ever failed in my life, and I'm forty. Quite an eye-opener. I'm planning to re-sit the test in May. Haven't dropped the writing this time around. Life is short. I should drop TNR before I drop the novel.
- AaronW
October 4, 2011 at 12:00am
Rayward wrote: "Nader spoke at my college on his book tour (Unsafe at Any Speed), and I will never forget the response when he asked students with family members or close friends who had been killed or seriously injured in an autombile accident to raise their hands. Yep, everybody raised their hands." Cars really have gotten safer. I've been thinking for five minutes, and the best I (28 years old) can do is a friend moderately injured in a motorcycle accident.
- WillPastor
October 4, 2011 at 12:04am
Re: Corvairs. All rear-weighted cars are tricky and dangerous like that when pushed to the limit in a curve; Porsche 911s have always been "dangerous" in that sense. GM fixed the Corvair's "wheel-tuck" problem once they found out about it (cost about $15, I believe). A far greater problem back then was that very few people used seat belts regularly, and there were also a lot of male baby boomers just starting to drive in the era of performance (i.e., "muscle") cars.
- gmck1948
October 4, 2011 at 1:22pm