Warren: Romney 'wrote off half the American people as deadbeats'

Elizabeth Warren with supporters. Greg Sargent asked Elizabeth Warren to respond to Mitt Romney's assertion that 47 percent of America is mooching off the rest. As you might expect, he got a great response.

'Romney just wrote off half the people in Massachusetts and half the people in America as deadbeats,' Warren told me. 'This is a separate category of contempt for half of our fellow citizens.'

'He doesn't understand that millions of these people are working their hearts out, and paying plenty in taxes,' Warren continued, meaning many people pay no federal income taxes do pay other taxes. She added Romney has 'no recognition of what people's lives are really like.'

Warren said Romney's comments clarified the choice voters face this fall. 'It's a party that says, `I've got mine and the rest of you are on your own,' versus those who say, `We're all in this together,'' she said. 'There's a clear choice in this election, between those who believe that to build an economy, the rich and powerful should get richer and more powerful, with tax cuts for the wealthiest and deregulation, while everyone else is left to pick up the pieces."

That's it, what this whole election boils down to. The Republicans are running on "I've got mine and the rest of you are on your own," and the Democrats on "We're all in this together." It's the fundamental, substantive divide in this election nationally, and in states and districts across the country. That includes Massachusetts, and it's got a lot to do with why Warren has broken through on the polls. Markos wrote about the three she took the lead in over the weekeend, and now there's a fourth, from WBUR, where she leads 45-40, just outside the poll's 4.4 MoE. It's this poll that shows just how much of an impact her message is making.

The poll finds an increasing number of likely voters ' 39 percent ' believe Warren 'will stand up for regular people when in the Senate,' compared to just 30 percent when we polled back in February. Twenty-nine percent said the same thing of Brown, compared to 33 percent in February.

Warren is seen as the candidate who best 'understands the needs of middle-class families.' Thirty-five percent of likely voters see her that way; 27 percent say the phrase best describes Brown.

And that's precisely it.

While Scott Brown eventually got around to sort of denouncing Romney's statement, saying he doesn't share Romney's view of the world, he sure acts like it. Like in making it "crystal clear" that protecting the tax cuts for the rich is his top priority, even if it means higher taxes for the rest of us. Or, as Warren says, "when it comes down to it, Scott Brown votes with millionaires and billionaires instead of working families here in Massachusetts.'

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