Charlotte, Day 2: Elizabeth Warren speaks

ELIZABETH WARREN, engaged in a battle to unseat Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, came to the convention Wednesday to shore up her bona fides on the national stage, even as she gave due props to President Obama and his bid for re-election.

Warren, a novice to elective politics, is only down by only five percentage points in the heated Bay State race. More than dutiful, better than workmanlike, her speech matched most of the standing Democratic talking points. She started out shaky enough (to be expected when you're speaking from a perch like a major national convention) but soon settled down into a spirited pushback against corporatism.

“Americans are fighters,” she said. “We're tough, resourceful and creative, and if we have the chance to fight on a level playing field, where everyone pays a fair share and everyone has a real shot, then no one — no one can stop us.

“President Obama gets it because he spent his life fighting for the middle-class, and now he's fighting to level that playing field, because we know the economy doesn't grow from the top down but from the middle-class out and the bottom up. That's how we create jobs and reduce the debt.

“And Mitt Romney — he wants to give tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires, but for middle-class families who are hanging on by their fingernails, his plan will hammer them with a new tax hike of of to $2,000. Mitt Romney wants to give billions in breaks to big corporations, but he and Paul Ryan would pulverize financial reform, voucherize Medicare and vaporize Obamacare.

“The Republican vision is clear: ‘I got mine. The rest of you are on your own.’ Republicans say they don't believe in government. Sure, they do. They believe in government to help themselves and their powerful friends.”

Warren offered a strong and emotional rejoinder to Romney’s unfortunate rhetorical equation of corporations and people. “After all, Mitt Romney is the guy who said corporations are people. No, Governor Romney, corporations are not people.

“People have hearts. They have kids. They get jobs. They get sick. They cry, they dance. They live, they love, and they die, and that matters. That matters.

“That matters — that matters because we do not run this country for corporations. We run it for people, and that is why we need Barack Obama.”

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Image credits: Warren: From DNC pool video.