Reply #48: Love this: "It is an informed and measured populism..."

[pampango]

It is an informed and measured populism, and it helps explain why she immediately became the leading Democratic contender in the race to challenge Senator Scott Brown, the Republican who is up for re-election next year.

Ms. Warren, a law professor at Harvard, helped to design the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Because of her fierce advocacy on behalf of consumers, Senate Republicans and the financial industry made clear they would never allow her to run it.

Her larger appeal, though, comes from her ability to shred Republican arguments that rebalancing the tax burden constitutes class warfare. In a living-room speech that went viral on YouTube last month, she pointed out that people in this country don’t get rich entirely by themselves — everyone benefits from roads, public safety agencies and an education system paid for by taxes. And those who have benefited the most, she says, need to give back more.

“You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea — God bless!” she said. “Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”