The Sweetheart of the Rodeo for Senate

Elizabeth Warren has announced her candidacy for the Senate in Massachusetts. The video announcement of Dr. Warren shows she's rested and relaxed and looks less haggard than she did in her last days here in Washington fighting for the Consumer Protection Agency.

I saw Elizabeth Warren's Labor Day speech to the Massachusetts AFL-CIO. It was clear she doesn't have her timing down yet. She stepped on her applause lines and her timing was off for such a gathering. But the content of her message brought standing ovations.

This is a person who "loves teaching contract law." The daughter of a janitor, she has spent her whole professional life studying how the middle-class was made and how it has been destroyed. Before being in charge of the TARP oversight for Congress and her stint lobbying for the Consumer Protection Agency and then designing it, she travelled around the country speaking to any group who would have her about the economic challenges facing the middle class. By the time she came to the attention of Washington, she had already gained a devoted following, including me, who marveled at this brave, honest and frank woman. Later President Obama would reach out to her during his 2008 campaign.

The minute she announced the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee started receiving enormous money. She was their version of a Ron Paul Money Bomb. At the same time, the banks, the Wall Street firms and the Koch brothers continued their attack on her. The Scott Brown campaign started by suggesting she really wasn't a person from Massachusetts but someone who is a carpetbagger from Oklahoma. And today she is a "liberal" from Harvard.

To the credit of progressives, they adopted her early and gave her the audience at meetings such as Netroots. I never could see what is liberal or progressive in what she says. I always found what she says simply common sense that used to be accepted as what is necessary for the common good.

When the large banks went after her and started pressuring Geitner to do something about her, she went to gatherings of small banks, which had first been suspicious of her. They ended up supporting her for the Consumer Protection Agency.

The problem of Elizabeth Warren is the problem with our political system. She is the female Jimmy Stewart figure in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. The honest, open, frank citizen who thinks common decency should triumph. I wish these things happened in real life. And I hope millions contribute to her campaign. She's the candidate of civics lessons. To her credit, she proved tenacious in fighting here in Washington without losing her composure or her honesty.

I hope she prevails. Good luck, Elizabeth.