LOWELL, Mass. - Elizabeth Warren and Senator Scott P. Brown clashed Monday night in a spirited debate held, appropriately enough, in a massive hockey arena here with 5,000 people in the audience cheering them on as if they were gladiators jousting in a pit.
Both scored points and both made blunders. Ms. Warren's most embarrassing moment may have been when she named Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana as a Republican in Washington with whom she could work; unfortunately for her, Mr. Lugar was defeated in his primary in May and will not be returning to the Senate next year.
Mr. Brown's blunder - at least to viewers in deep blue Massachusetts - was identifying Justice Antonin Scalia, the archconserv ative, as his “model†Supreme Court justice, drawing boos from the audience and a pleased-as-punch smile from Ms. Warren.
After naming Justice Scalia, Mr. Brown then tossed out the names of several other justices, including that of Sonia Sotomayor, which seemed such an obvious pander to women and Hispanics that it drew laughter. The moderator, David Gregory, who is the host of NBC's “Meet the Press,†wondered how Mr. Brown could pick two people at the opposite ends of the political spectrum.
“That's the beauty of being an independent,†Mr. Brown, who is actually a Republican, grinned. “I don't need to pick one.â€
That independence was his theme of the night _ as it has been throughout this neck-and-neck Senate race in Massachusetts - and Mr. Brown drove it home at every turn through the hour-long squabble-fest.
In his attempt to appeal to independent voters, whom he will need if he hopes to win, Mr. Brown repeated over and over that he was a bipartisan and independent voice in Washington, even suggesting that he had not decided whether he would support Senator Mitch McConnell, his party's leader, when the new Senate convenes next year.
He got a chance to demonstrate his bipartisanship when he was asked if Senator John Kerry, the state's senior senator and a Democrat who recently endorsed Ms. Warren, would make a good Secretary of State (his name has been floated as a replacement for Hillary Clinton, who plans to step down at the end of President Obama's term).
“Yeah, I do,†Mr. Brown said with seeming sincerity. He said he had told Mr. Kerry this and commended him for his knowledge of foreign affairs.
Ms. Warren likewise drove her message as she sought to fire up her base of Democratic voters, hitting two main points. She emphasized constantly that Mr. Brown was the champion of “millionaires and billionaires†and she sought to link him repeatedly to the Republicans.
He may c all himself bipartisan, she said, but when he talks to donors around the country, “he says they should contribute to his campaign because if he's re-elected, that increases the odds that the Republicans will control the Senate and that he can block President Obama's agenda.â€
At one point, a look of slight panic seemed to come over her face when Mr. Gregory asked her why Massachusetts had never elected a woman to the Senate or as governor. One reason that some political consultants have put forth over the years is that voters here can be sexist, which would obviously not be a smart answer in a televised debate. Ms. Warren answered simply that she did not know. Mr. Gregory seemed a bit surprised not to get more of a rise out of her and asked if this bothered her. A few tense seconds of silence ticked by until she hit on an answer: “Right now I'm trying to do something about that,†she said, bringing cheers from her supporters.
The debate took place at the T songas Center at the University of Massachusetts campus here. About 5,000 people were inside the huge arena, while more than 13,000 people sought tickets but were turned away. It was sponsored by the university and the Boston Herald.
Mr. Brown was criticized after the last debate for seeming to go after Ms. Warren with a sledgehammer. This time, he was still pointed in his criticism of her but left the sledgehammer at home. He gave her genuine compliments when the candidates were asked if there was anything about the other that they admired.
Mr. Brown said Ms. Warren was a very hard-working, accomplished professor and was qualified for the job. He added that he had talked to friends whose children she had taught in law school and “they say she's wonderful.†After a pause, he added with a grin: “I'll do everything in my power to make sure she'll continue to be in that position.â€
At another point, however, as they talked over each other, he demanded t o be heard, saying, “I'm not a student in your classroom.â€
(Ms. Warren complimented him on his family and said she agreed with his vote to end “Don't Ask Don't Tell,†which prevented gays and lesbians in the military from serving openly.)
The candidates also trod over familiar ground. Mr. Gregory opened the debate with questions about Ms. Warren's claims to being a Native American, which has become the signature issue of this race. In fact, during a brief break in the broadcast, both candidates ran commercials on that very subject.
Ms. Warren avoided a direct answer to Mr. Gregory's question of whether she considered herself a minority, saying, finally, “I consider myself as having a Native American background.†As for regrets about how she had handled the issue over the course of the campaign, she said she wished she had answered questions about it more quickly; she had let them fester for weeks this spring, worrying fellow Democrats that she h ad stumbled badly out of the gate.
Mr. Brown also did not respond directly when asked if he thought Ms. Warren was a liar, though he has said she misled voters. But he made clear why he has made such a big issue of her checking a box calling herself a minority when he accused her of “taking something that is really meant for somebody who has been truly disadvantaged by years of discrimination.†The not-so-coded reference to affirmative action programs could appeal to certain voters who feel they have unfairly lost out on jobs or in school to minorities because of such programs.
Ms. Warren was better prepared this time on questions about her legal representation of corporate clients than she was in the first debate, when she barely defended herself. This time, she said she was representing legal principles to protect the rights of workers.
On immigration, a subject that almost never comes up on the campaign trail, the two expressed strong differences of opinion. Ms. Warren said she supported the Dream Act while Mr. Brown opposed it, calling it “a form of backdoor amnesty.â€
They also disagreed on the war in Afghanistan, which also almost never comes up. Ms. Warren said she wanted to bring the troops home ahead of President Obama's timetable, while Mr. Brown said he supported it.
The last question was about whether the Red Sox, who had a miserable season, should keep Bobby Valentine, their manager. Ms. Warren, obviously conscious of wanting to appear better informed than Martha Coakley, the Democrat who lost to Mr. Brown in 2010, looked pained and said she was “still in wounded mode on that one.†Pressed, she said she would give Mr. Valentine another year.
Mr. Brown, who often wears a Red Sox jacket, avoided answering. “There's a lot of problems and they need to work it out themselves,†he said.
