Elizabeth Warren's Victory Speech (2012 Election)

On September 14, 2011, Warren declared her intention to run for the Democratic nomination for the 2012 election in Massachusetts for the United States Senate. The seat had been won by Republican Scott Brown in a 2010 special election after the death of Ted Kennedy.[38][39] A week later, a video of Warren

speaking in Andover became popular on the internet.[40] In it, Warren replies to the charge that asking the rich to pay more taxes is "class warfare," pointing out that no one grew rich in America without depending on infrastructure paid for by the rest of society, stating:[41][42] There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. ... You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory,
and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea. God bless. 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.
President Barack Obama later echoed her sentiments in a 2012 election campaign speech.[43]

Warren ran unopposed for the Democratic nomination, and won it on June 2, 2012, at the state Democratic convention with a record 95.77% of the votes of delegates.[44] She was endorsed by the Governor of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick.[45] Warren and her opponent Scott Brown agreed to engage in four televised debates, including one with a consortium of media outlets in Springfield and one on WBZ-TV in Boston.[46]

In April 2012, the Boston Herald drew attention to Warren's law directory entries from 1986 to 1995 in which she had self-identified as a Native American, and that Harvard Law School had publicized in response to criticisms about a lack of faculty diversity.[47] According to Warren and her three siblings, Native American ancestry was a part of their family folklore.[48] However the New England Historical Genealogical Society could not find documentary proof of Native American lineage.[49] Colleagues and supervisors, including Charles Fried a Harvard Law professor involved in Warren's hiring, say she received no preferential treatment as a result of her claimed ancestry.[48][50]

Warren encountered significant opposition from business interests. In August 2012, Rob Engstrom, political director for the United States Chamber of Commerce, claimed that "no other candidate in 2012 represents a greater threat to free enterprise than Professor Warren."[51] She nonetheless raised $39 million for her campaign, the most of any Senate candidate in 2012.[35]

Warren received a primetime speaking slot at the 2012 Democratic National Convention, immediately before Bill Clinton, on the evening of September 5, 2012. Warren positioned herself as a champion of a beleaguered middle class that "has been chipped, squeezed, and hammered." According to Warren, "People feel like the system is rigged against them. And here's the painful part: They're right. The system is rigged." Warren said that Wall Street CEOs "wrecked our economy and destroyed millions of jobs" and that they "still strut around congress, no shame, demanding favors, and acting like we should thank them."

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