Elizabeth Warren Gets a Famous Boxing Coach to Fight for Her

Elizabeth Warren’s newest campaign ad features Art Ramalho, owner of the West End Gym in Lowell that inspired the film The Fighter, in a strategy that seems like a way to keep up the fight at a moment when the candidate herself is trying to look warm and friendly. 

The ad marks a big (and treacherous) milestone in that it’s the first time either candidate has named the other in an ad, according to the Globe. Still, the new strategy makes sense given the news reports this week that Democratic strategists wish Warren would come off like less of a scolding advocate and look a bit warmer in her commercials. As the Globe’s Frank Phillips writes:

The change in advertising style comes after Democratic leaders and activists, upset that animated advocacy was alienating voters, had lobbied her and her staff to soften her image. The Globe reported Wednesday that Warren was facing pressure to make a major shift that would seek to do that, while focusing more directly on her GOP rival, Scott Brown.

So yes, we’re already seeing ads that make Warren look softer, but while she’s busy being warm, who’s going to do the “animated advocacy”? There was some confusion last month about where Ramalho’s charge, Micky Ward, would fall in the Senate race. He endorsed Scott Brown but then quickly unendorsed him when someone explained his positions. But the new ad leaves no confusion about which box Ward’s coach, Ramalho, is checking. He trots out familiar Warrenesque lines like, “Tax cuts for millionaires, that’s not gonna help people out here. I think Scott Brown is with the big corporations.” He adds, “We need Elizabeth Warren in our corner,” which, let’s assume, he means to be strictly metaphorical as we can’t imagine Warren would make a very good boxer.