Try though she may -- nay, fight though she persistently fights -- Senator Elizabeth Warren has a branding problem.
Granted, she's doing her darndest to change that. The title of her new book, for example -- "This Fight is Our Fight: The Battle to Save America's Middle Class." Not the more succinct "This is Our Fight" or, tighter still, "This Fight." Operative word here -- fight. As in, "Fighting the Fight That's Ours to Fight: One Feisty, Fiery Senator Punches Away for America's Embattled Middle Class."
Why the strenuous rebranding? Could it be that Warren knows when her name come up, the first thing that comes to mind for many people is not what Warren wants?
Case in point, her appearance on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher last night. Warren was touting her book when things took an awkward detour --
MAHER: OK, so now we have another Republican president who just presented another tax plan which is, I mean, I've seen Republican tax plans like this but not quite as brazen 'cause this one doesn't even pretend. It's just about, wouldn't it be great if rich people didn't pay taxes?
WARREN: Right.
MAHER: But he's going to go to a rally in Harrisburg, Pa., tomorrow and tell his fans all about this, about how his kids are not going to have to pay taxes because they got rid of the estate tax, and they're still with him. They're not with you. Explain to me what that disconnection is.
WARREN: Actually, I'm going to push back. I disagree with you. When you talk ...
MAHER: Well, his fans are not with you.
WARREN (stretching an arm toward Maher): Hold on ...
MAHER: Come on ...
WARREN: When we talk ...
MAHER: They don't like you, Pocahontas (laughter from audience).WARREN: (continuing on as if what's just been said wasn't): When you talk about what's really the basic pieces of a progressive agenda ...
Tough to say which was funnier: Maher actually going there, or Warren's sideways glance at Maher as if he just passed gas in church.
It's been nearly five years since Warren's dubious claim to Native American ancestry while rising in the Ivy League became an issue, first surfacing during her campaign for the Senate against incumbent Scott Brown (though Brown's harping on it did little to help him).
But when an otherwise simpatico comedian mocks Warren to her face, and his audience gets a hoot out of it, the issue has not gone away. And all it would take for Warren to make it disappear is a low-cost, readily available DNA test, much as Obama put to rest skepticism about his citizenship by releasing his long-form birth certificate in 2011. Unless, that is, Warren has already taken the test and didn't like the result. Hence the fervent, ham-fisted effort at rebranding. Better to be seen as a fighter than a fraud.
