Warren Speaks to College Democrats

BOSTON—Pacing back and forth beside a large wooden podium and gazing out at a lecture hall filled with college students, Harvard Law School professor Elizabeth Warren seemed right at home Saturday. However, the students were not really her own and the lecture was closer to “Politics 101” than “Introduction to Contracts” during the senatorial candidate’s keynote address at the College Democrats of Massachusetts’ annual convention.

“What the experience with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau taught me is, it’s true that that power is there, but we have something that’s stronger and more powerful, and that is we have all of us,” Warren told the crowd.

One hundred and fifty-six students from 22 colleges and universities around the state, including a half-dozen from Harvard, attended the convention at Emerson College, where they heard speeches from Democratic Congressional candidate Joseph P. Kennedy III among others.

In a roughly 16-minute speech that focused on her own middle-class upbringing and work in Washington, Warren laid out the now-familiar terms of her candidacy. But rather than stopping there, she was not shy about making a direct connection to students, a demographic the Harvard Law School professor should know well.

“I’m here today with a very naked, a very open plea,” Warren said. “My plea is: Please, please be part of this Senate race,” Warren told the crowd, later adding “This is how this works. I want to go to Washington so that I can have your back, to make that happen I need you to have my back.”

And indeed, it seems students do have her back, at least those who attended this weekend’s convention. Introduced as the candidate “who has awoken the passion of our generation,” Warren drew great applause and spent nearly a quarter of an hour shaking hands and taking pictures with enthusiastic supporters after her speech. For some students, the theoretical inheritors of the broken future Warren speaks against, the candidate’s own story and dedication to issues like student loan reform and credit reform hit close to home.

“She’s talking about how she grew up in Oklahoma, she went to public schools, public college, public law school, and it’s like—not to say that I don’t appreciate leaders that go to the best schools—but I think that she has this really genuine message of wanting to help those people that grew up like her,” said Emerson College student Samm Leska, one of the organizers of the convention. “I think she’s a fighter.”

“She is definitely a very smart woman, but not the usual politician, which I think draws people to her,” said Boston College student Ali Roth, who volunteers for Warren’s campaign.

College students have been a key demographic for Warren’s campaign since it began last fall. In any race, young people often bear the brunt of responsibility for door-to-door canvassing and phone banking, but the Harvard Law School professor’s own candidacy has been particularly bolstered by the organizational and logistical support of students who have volunteered or interned with the campaign.

“Students own a part of this campaign. And it is their energy, their heart in this campaign that really makes it run,” Warren said in an interview.

A day after Warren addressed college Democrats, a Boston Globe poll released Sunday showed Senator Scott Brown leading Warren by just two points, 37 to 35, with 26 percent of voters saying they were undecided. The slim lead is well within the margin of error and amounts to a statistical tie, confirming what poll after poll has suggested: The race for U.S. Senate is far from over.

—Staff writer Nicholas P. Fandos can be reached at nicholasfandos@college.harvard.edu.