A Fighting Chance (38 page)

As a kid, I had learned about my Native American background the same way every kid learns about who they are: from family. I never questioned my family’s stories or asked my parents for proof or documentation. What kid would?

My mother’s family lived in Indian Territory but my mother was the baby in the family, and by the time she was born, Indian Territory had become part of the new state of Oklahoma. My mother and her family talked about our Native American ancestry on both sides: her mother’s and her father’s families both had Native American roots.

By the time my mother was in High school, she and her family lived in Wetumka, a small town (about 1,400 people by 1920) that was the kind of place where everyone knew everyone. When my daddy began seeing my mother, his family made it clear that they did not approve. They looked down on my mother and her family, and when my father announced that he wanted to marry my mother, his parents were adamantly opposed. But my daddy and mother were very much in love, so they eloped—no fancy dress and no big group of friends and family. For someone as close to her family as my mother, this was a cut that ran deep.

For years after the marriage, the two families continued to live in the same small town, but they were almost never in the same room. As kids, we got it: There was Daddy’s family and there was Mother’s family. We saw Mother’s family all the time. But visits with Daddy’s family were infrequent, planned long in advance, and always very stiff.

Despite the trouble with Daddy’s family, my mother never hid anything from us. Everyone on our mother’s side—aunts, uncles, and grandparents—talked openly about their Native American ancestry. My brothers and I grew up on stories about our grandfather building one-room schoolhouses and about our grandparents’ courtship and their early lives together in Indian Territory. We loved them and we loved their stories. As my mother got older, as she lost first her father and then her mother, her brothers, and two of her sisters, she spoke more forcefully than ever about the importance of not forgetting our Native American roots.

Now, in the middle of a heated Senate campaign, Republicans insisted that all of that was a lie. They claimed I wasn’t who I said I was; they said I had cheated to get where I’d gotten.

I was stunned by the attacks. How do you prove who you are? My brothers and I knew who we were. We knew our family stories. But the Republicans demanded documentation and, back at the turn of the century, nobody in my family had registered any tribal affiliation. In Oklahoma, that was pretty common. But knowing who you are is one thing, and proving who you are is another.

Republicans also accused me of using my background to get ahead, but that simply wasn’t true. It wasn’t a question of whether I
could
have sought advantage—I just didn’t. I never asked for special treatment when I applied to college, to law school, or for jobs. As the story broke and people dug through my background, every place that hired me backed that up 100 percent—including the Harvard hiring committee. Harvard told the media that they didn’t know about my background when they hired me; they offered me a job because they thought I was a good law professor. Period.

But the facts didn’t slow the Republicans down, and their attacks continued. Right-wing blogs took to calling me “Fauxcahontas.” Someone took out a billboard with a picture of me in a Native American headdress, declaring, “Elizabeth Warren is a joke.” One sunny afternoon, as I marched in a parade and shook hands and waved at people, a group of guys standing together on a corner started making Indian war whoops—patting their mouths as if they were some kind of cartoon braves. It was appalling.

As the storm continued, I talked with one or the other of my brothers nearly every day. They were getting calls from reporters and Republican operatives. People came to their homes, and someone put our mother’s death certificate on the Internet. Don Reed was shocked that so many people seemed to fancy themselves experts, without knowing our family. John was hurt, wounded by vicious name-calling. David was so furious he was ready to punch somebody. I felt terrible for my brothers; they never asked for any of this.

About the same time, the story broke that JPMorgan Chase had lost billions of dollars in high-risk trading in a scandal involving a trader known as “the London Whale.” It seemed pretty clear that three years after the crash and the TARP bailout, the giant bank and its CEO, Jamie Dimon, hadn’t given up their high-risk trading.

This should have been the moment to draw the sharpest difference between Scott Brown and me. Brown was “one of Wall Street’s favorites,” and he had worked to save the bankers $19 billion through his last-minute negotiations on Dodd–Frank. And I had been fighting for bank accountability for years. But my encounters with the press during this period were dominated by questions about my mother’s background—almost nobody asked about Jamie Dimon’s recklessness.

And then, just as the controversy seemed to be winding down, Scott Brown called out my parents, suggesting that they hadn’t told my brothers and me the truth about our family.

He attacked my dead parents.

I was hurt, and I was angry. But, as I saw it, there was nothing to do except keep on pushing ahead, fighting every day for what I believed in.

The controversy never went away completely, but it got better. Over time, reporters asked more about financial regulations and student loans and less about bloodlines. And people on the campaign trail wanted to talk about what was going on with their families, not mine.

A few months after the controversy had finally quieted down, an investigative reporter with the
Boston Globe
dived deep into my ancestry, tracking down every possible far-off relative she could locate, many of them people I’d never even met. In September, a long piece on the front page that quoted two distant cousins who said their families had never talked about any Native American ancestry, while other cousins and my three brothers were quoted saying they had grown up knowing this was part of their families’ lives. Ina Mapes, a second cousin from Arizona whom I’d never met, gave a long account about our family’s background, concluding that she had no doubts. “I think you are what you are,” she told the reporter. “And part of us is Indian.”

That sounded about right: You are what you are.

Volunteers

Through it all, the volunteers kept coming out. They believed in our campaign, even when a lot of the pundits and bloggers threw cold water on our chances. We opened loads of offices around the state, all dedicated to helping people get organized, make phone calls, and knock on doors.

Vicki Kennedy called with thoughtful advice borne of years of campaigning across the state. Former governor Mike Dukakis, who was now in his late seventies, took Bruce out to show him the finer points of knocking on doors, setting a blistering pace that kept them half-running from house to house. At one home, no one answered the front door, but the governor thought perhaps someone was in the backyard. While Bruce was thinking about the laws of trespass—he’s a professor of property law and takes this sort of thing pretty seriously—the governor bounded to the side of the house and began fiddling with the gate to the backyard. Just as he got it open, a big dog came racing around the corner, barking wildly, slobber flying everywhere. The governor never missed a step. After jumping onto a small side porch, he called back over his shoulder to Bruce with the first lesson of political door knocking: “Ignore the dog. You won’t change his mind anyway.”

The people managing the volunteer effort were incredible. Mike Firestone is a high-energy guy who led a high-energy grassroots organization, and Lynda Tocci, Tracey Lewis, and Amanda Coulombe developed new strategies for turning out voters. Lauren Miller organized a creative and successful online effort as our new media director. The team leaders throughout the state were talented and innovative, and they busted their tails. Over time, tens of thousands of volunteers showed up and said, “I’m ready to work!” I think they went through a zillion boxes of Dunkin’ Donuts before they were done.

Some of our volunteers had worked for lots of campaigns, but many were first-timers. Some volunteered because they were excited about a particular issue—education, research, global warming. Some volunteered because they wanted to do their part for democracy.

And one man volunteered to honor the dead.

I was in a Springfield union hall, talking to people who had come to find out about helping out. It was cool outside, and each time someone opened the door, it let in a
whoosh
of cold air. I always gave a short speech and took lots of questions, but this was my favorite part of campaigning, standing around and talking with people about their lives and what changes we needed to make to build a stronger future.

The hall was crowded, and people were offering cheerful greetings. Several had asked for pictures, and we’d had fun shouting, “Win!” or “Hi, Mom!” as someone snapped the shot.

I noticed a man off to the side, maybe in his fifties. He was alone, his head down and his shoulders hunched. I reached out to him. He told me his name, and we shook hands. And then we stood quietly for a minute, still clasping hands. I moved in closer, and we shifted away from the crowd.

His face was tired. His voice was quiet, a little raspy. He said his son had graduated from college a couple of years ago with a lot of debt. The boy hadn’t been able to find a good job, and the debts just kept piling up.

The man paused and was quiet for a long time. He explained that people don’t know how that can get you down, what it does to your heart, how depressed you get. He let out a deep breath. “My son killed himself last month.”

We stood there in the cool air. I didn’t say anything. I just held his hand. Finally he said, “We are failing our children.”

I said, “I promise I’ll do my best.”

He said, “I know you will.”

And that was it. He paused, and then he walked away. I held out my hand to the next person, but I knew I would never forget him. Not ever. And I would never forget what this race was really all about.

Finding Peace

I think my campaign speeches were more somber during those months. The race was grueling, and I was still behind in the polls. Well-wishers offered advice everywhere I went. “Focus on different issues!” “Change your bumper stickers!” “Fire somebody!”

I knew the advice came from a good place, from supporters who just wanted to help me win. But the underlying anxiety was palpable. People were pouring their hearts into this campaign, and I could hear the dire prediction whispering in the winds at every pit stop and every rally:
She’s going to lose. She’s going to lose.

So I worked harder. What else was there to do?

Moments of peace were treasures, offering calm in an otherwise crazy life. Bruce and I went to Easter services and Passover seders and joined in prayers in several languages. Reverend Miniard Culpepper at Pleasant Hill Baptist Church made a special effort to encourage me, and I joined him in prayer on several occasions. It felt healing to be able, even for a short while, to focus on values and to be in touch with the spirit that moved me into this race.

Reverend Culpepper offered me wise counsel: Be still and listen. Have faith. Let people know your heart. As the campaign progressed, I found myself thinking about Reverend Culpepper’s words time and again.

I carried my King James Bible to services, the same one I’d carried since fourth grade. Sometimes the pastor called on me to speak. I had taught Sunday school years earlier, but mostly I had told Bible stories to little children. I’d never spoken to a whole congregation. But I stood up, and I talked about my favorite Bible verse, Matthew 25:40. I told people what it meant to me. Its message was very simple: The Lord calls us to action. It’s what we
do
that matters most.

State Convention

June arrived, and at last it was time for the party’s state convention. Democrats from around the state would come together in Springfield, endorse a candidate, and get ready for the general election in November. It was a bit like a giant pep rally crossed with a student council election.

Tom Keady jumped in and gave our campaign yet another boost. Tom had been active in Boston politics for decades. He’d been a key operative for John Kerry in 2004, and he’d worked on several other presidential races. He arranged an old-fashioned train trip from Boston to Springfield, with red, white, and blue bunting, and rally stops in Framingham and Worcester along the way. As we pulled out of the station in Boston, I got to stand in the back of the train and wave—just like some picture in a fifth-grade history book. The train was full of supporters, and we picked up more people along the way. Amelia and the girls joined us. (Seventeen-month-old Atticus stayed home with his daddy; Amelia had decided that the little guy might not be ready for quite this much democracy.)

When we got to Springfield, we saw that some Teamsters had parked a shiny eighteen-wheeler next to the green where we rallied our supporters; it sported a huge
ELIZABETH WARREN
sign on the side. That night, everyone hit the bars. They were packed, and I jumped up on benches or tables to deliver impromptu speeches. People hugged me, kissed me, and spilled a lot of beer on me.

On Saturday, June 2, the Springfield arena was packed. The Senate race had started with a gaggle of Democratic contenders, but now we were down to two—Marisa DeFranco, a high-spirited immigration lawyer, and me. Both of us would vie for the nomination until the primary in September, duking it out through the summer. Or at least, that’s what we would do unless the convention delegates voted by more than 85 percent for one candidate, in which case only that candidate would go forward. That seemed unlikely, since no one could recall a contested Democratic primary that had resulted in the necessary 85 percent vote.

I had exactly fifteen minutes to make my pitch to the delegates about why I should be the Democratic nominee for the Senate—with the emphasis on
exactly
. Tradition required that I pick one or more people to introduce me, and several seasoned professionals had warned me that it was important to keep these introductions short. I put my own spin on that ball: instead of short introductions, I picked short
introducers
. My little granddaughters.