In what appears to have been a joke, Massachusetts Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren declared last Friday that she would be “going for the hick vote” in 2012.
In an Oct. 14 exchange with the progressive LeftAhead podcast, host Mike Ball told Warren that he was born in Oklahoma and raised in West Virginia.
Warren, who was also born in Oklahoma, responded, “I’m going for the hick vote here, I just want you to know” and suggested that “maybe we can start wearing stickers that say, ‘Hicks for Elizabeth.'”
An excerpt of the interview was uploaded to YouTube on Monday. Politico first reported on the comments Monday afternoon.
A description of Warren’s appearance on LeftAhead’s website indicates that Warren even coined her own “hick” variation.
“Asked about being derided by opponents for being from Oklahoma and on the other hand spending the past 17 years teaching at Harvard, she said, ‘I’m a new category, an elite hick,'” according to the description.
Warren is the clear front-runner in the 2012 Massachusetts Democratic Senate primary. She will likely face incumbent Republican Sen. Scott Brown in the general election. In 2010, Brown was elected in a special election after gaining fame for driving town-to-town in his pickup truck. (RELATED: A run for his money: Warren doubles Scott Brown in third quarter fundraising)
“Professor Warren’s insulting use of the word ‘hick’ offers a revealing prism into her elitist and arrogant worldview,” Massachusetts GOP communications director Time Buckley told ABC News.
“Massachusetts voters deserve an explanation about just who Professor Warren was referring to when she spoke of winning the ‘hick vote,’” Buckley said.