Will Scott Brown pay for insinuating that Elizabeth Warren is ugly?

(Image credit: Ron Sachs/CNP/Corbis)

last updated 8 January 2015

This week, a closely watched Senate race in Massachusetts turned personal — and a bit nasty. During a Democratic primary debate, progressive hero Elizabeth Warren poked fun at the Republican incumbent, Scott Brown, for posing nude for Cosmopolitan in 1982 to help pay for law school, noting that she managed to scrape up tuition without disrobing: "I didn't take my clothes off." "Thank God," Brown later retorted in a radio interview. Will insulting Warren's looks hurt Brown's campaign?

Brown's mean response will anger female voters: Permit me to "state the obvious: By saying 'Thank God,' Brown was implying that Warren is ugly," says Nick Baumann at Mother Jones. Bad move: "Attacking your female opponent for her looks won't necessarily play well with women voters," and Brown can't afford to lose a single vote. Warren is already "within striking distance" in the polls in the deep-blue Bay State.

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The Left's outrage is predictable — and unfair: Brown deserves "a wrist slap" for taking such a cheap shot, says Allahpundit at Hot Air. But he said this "spontaneously in self-defense." It's not something he's likely to repeat. But Democrats don't care. They just want to stir up some phony outrage to "help Warren get a sympathy bump" by casting her as a victim and Brown as a "sneering frat boy."

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