Sorry Curt, Liz unfazed by curveball challenge
I wish I had better news for Curt Schilling. I drove up to Lawrence yesterday on a hunch, or maybe it was a hope.
I wanted to ask Massachusetts U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who was motoring down from Route 93 from Manchester, N.H., after stomping on Donald Trump, if she was concerned about a Senate challenge from our Bloody Sock warrior who helped slay the Yankees — the misbegotten gamer who lost his unbloody socks, and just about everything else, with a dashed dream called 38 Studios.
But to be brutally honest, Curt, it appeared like the last thing on Liz Warren’s mind yesterday was a possible slider on the inside corner from you.
The entire political establishment of Lawrence descended upon state Sen. Barbara L’Italien’s storefront headquarters yesterday afternoon, waiting for Liz Warren to anchor a rallying cry for early voting.
We waited for about an hour for Warren to cross over the border, but I must say, the people in Lawrence were wonderful. They plied the waiting crowd with cookies and tiny pumpkin muffins.
When I first put the question of Curt Schilling’s possible challenge to Warren yesterday, the two of us were caught in a bilingual floodtide of humanity, rolling down Essex Street, toward the early voting center at the Lawrence City Hall. All Warren did was look at me like I was speaking in a foreign tongue that wasn’t Spanish, laugh heartily, wave her hands and shake her head as the moving throng clamored for selfies.
I’m sorry, Curt. I wish I could say the question stopped Liz in her tracks, but it didn’t. What her face seemed to say was, “Isn’t Trump daffy enough? Now you want to ask me about Curt Schilling?”
Outside Lawrence City Hall, amid the crowd clamoring for pictures, Liz Warren wanted to let us know why she stopped in this venerable mill town.
“Look, as long as there’s a chance that Donald Trump could be president of the United States,” she said, “I am worried 24 hours a day, seven days a week and I am out there busting my tail every possible minute because this is an opportunity to elect a woman who is well-qualified to be president of the United States and who’s gonna work hard for the people. That’s why we’re here.”
I tried to push her about Schilling.
“Are you kidding?” she said. “This is Donald Trump, what else is there to say? The man wakes up each day and proves he’s totally unqualified to be president.”
Then I tried one last time: when she dispatches the “worry” that is Donald Trump, will she ponder the thought of Curt Schilling?
There was laughter once again, and someone in the crowd yelled, “Bring him on.”
Dan Rivera, the mayor of Lawrence, smiled. “Listen,” he said, “I am so thankful for what he did to get us through the World Series. And I will always love him for that. But if he tries to go against Liz Warren, I’m afraid that more than his socks will get bloody.”