Warren ponders Senate race

BOSTON —  President Barack Obama may have cleared the way for a new entrant into the Democratic field lining up to challenge Sen. Scott Brown in the Republican’s re-election bid next year, by choosing someone other than consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren to run the new national Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 

Ms. Warren, a Harvard University professor who held a position overseeing the national TARP bank bailout program and more recently helped create the federal consumer protection agency, has been encouraged to enter the race by many state and national Democratic leaders. 

While Ms. Warren had been considered a lead candidate to head up that new agency, the president instead chose Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray for the post, leaving Ms. Warren available to run for the Senate. 

In her first interview since the president’s decision, which aired yesterday on MSNBC, Ms. Warren indicated she is going to seriously consider a challenge to Mr. Brown who is serving the three years left of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy’s last term in office,. 

Ms. Warren said she is returning home to Massachusetts to recharge after her work setting up the consumer agency and planned to spend some time with her grandson. “I need to do more thinking,” before making a decision on the Senate race, she said. 

She is among several prominent Democrats weighing the Senate race, which has four announced, but lesser known, candidates. Also believed to be considering entering the race are U.S. Reps. Michael Capuano, D-Somerville, and Stephen Lynch, D-Boston. 

National Republicans seized on a question put to Ms. Warren in that interview as evidence that she lacks credibility because she is not interested enough in the Boston Red Sox. 

In the interview MSNBC reporter Andrea Mitchell asked her if she was brushing up on the Red Sox to prepare for a possible Senate race, noting that the last Democratic woman to run against Scott Brown, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, flubbed a comment about former Red Sox hurler Curt Schilling on a radio talk show during her campaign. 

Ms. Coakley made a mistaken reference to Mr. Schilling in the campaign saying he was a Yankee fan, apparently confusing him with another prominent Red Sox pitcher that later played for the New York Yankees. 

Ms. Warren answered the question saying her husband is the bigger sports fan in her family and that he follows the Red Sox and all the other Boston teams. “I think it’s important to stay up with all the teams all the time,” she said adding, “Believe me, he keeps up with the Red Sox and every other team in Boston.” 

Brian Walsh, communications director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, almost immediately e-mailed a clip of the Warren interview to the media, apparently trying to scuttle support for her entry into the Democratic field to challenge Mr. Brown by claiming she doesn’t pay enough attention to the Red Sox. 

“It looks like support from the Washington establishment isn’t the only thing Warren has in common with past nominee Martha Coakley,” the GOP media alert claimed.