Objects on the right may be further from the center than they appear. (still via YouTube/GBH News & NEPM)

SPRINGFIELD—In their second and likely last outing, US Senator Elizabeth Warren and her GOP challenger, attorney John Deaton, battled along many of the same lines as before. Deaton again attempted to brand Warren as an extreme creature of Washington. Warren returned the volley by calling him a tool of right-wing interests.

Yet, as she had done Tuesday in Boston, Warren underscored that the race was about control of the US Senate. Her reelection would give Massachusetts voters what they want: Democratic control of the upper chamber on Capitol Hill. To this, Deaton had little rejoinder except wild allegations about the propriety of Warren’s time in Washington.

“She talks about trust, yet she has proven to be corrupt in Washington,” Deaton said before going on about how she—more accurately her staff—discussed the Securities & Exchange Commission chair’s testimony. “As a federal prosecutor I prosecuted suborning perjury cases. I can convict Senator that that!”

The bizarre accusations may have bewildered Warren—or anybody familiar with the Speech and Debate clause. They did not phase her.

“Mr. Deaton is just spinning this whole fantasy story,” she said, noting that he has no evidence anything untruthful was said. “Understand, there is a reason that Mr. Deaton is very, very focused on the SEC and the reason for that is that it’s the only agency that seems to have a little wedge on regulating crypto.”

The media panel for Thursday’s debate were GBH News’s Adam Reilly and Saraya Wintersmith and New England Public Media’s Adam Frenier.

In some ways, the face-off between Deaton and Warren was a continuation of their testy duel Tuesday at WBZ’s studios in Boston. Many of the hottest topics—immigration, Ukraine and Donald Trump—traveled 90 miles to the studios of New England Public Radio here in downtown Springfield.

Even the cutesier questions about favorite haunts or pols the candidates admired had odd moments. It is not every day that Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele enters the #mapoli chat.

Deaton is a first-time candidate and comes off far from polished. That is not his problem, however. Some newbie heat is no electoral death sentence—the Bay State’s political preferences almost certainly will be.

Rather, Deaton’s problem is projecting a funhouse mirror version of Warren and emphasizing issues, popular on the right and in tech circles. These circles include fintech, which includes cryptocurrency, and entities Deaton has represented.

Yay! Even GOP Senate candidates love East-West rail now! (via wikipedia)

The Thursday debate was not all jousting. They agreed that East-West rail, officially CompassRail now in state government parlance, was a priority. However, Warren used the opportunity to ding Donald Trump, whose efforts to summon an infrastructure bill became a joke.

That led to one of Deaton’s few clean hits on Warren that did not seem caked in ideology. Echoing Joe Biden’s notable 2007 dig on Rudolph Giuliani for having “only 3 things he mentioned in his sentence, a noun, a verb, & 9/11,” but with Deaton substituting Trump for 9/11 in his dig on Warren. Likewise, Deaton was on slightly firmer ground when he went after the incumbent on immigration early in the debate. He observed she voted against the border bill Vice President Kamala Harris wants to revive.

Nevertheless, the debate was only seven minutes old when he called Warren “extreme.” Simultaneously, he began using terms like “getaways” for migrants that did not present themselves at the border. Certainly, the migrant influx has hardened views in Massachusetts. Yet, there is no evidence Bay State voters suddenly became rocketing xenophobes.

For her part, the senator did not rule out voting for the border bill in the future. She cast her no vote as a signal she wanted to see changes.

Warren had an opportunity to fire back and tie Deaton to Trump. While the Republican Senate candidate has said he will not vote for his party’s presidential nominee, he said the opposite last year when Biden was still the Democrats’ presumptive nominee. Deaton insisted this was false, but Warren’s campaign surfaced a tweet confirming her claim.

Let me go ahead and cost me some followers :

I don’t want either Biden or Trump to win. If forced between them, I would do what I usually do, and vote against the incumbent. In the past I’ve called myself a conservative Democrat, or a liberal Republican, and, of course, an…

— John E Deaton (@JohnEDeaton1) November 19, 2023

Deaton struggled to outmaneuver Warren on abortion, too. The challenger has declared forcefully he is pro-choice. He even clarified Thursday he thought Massachusetts 24-week limit on elective abortion, with clear exceptions for medically necessity thereafter, was the right balance.

Yet, Warren noted, as she had two days before, that Deaton also said he would have voted for Justice Neil Gorsuch who was in the majority that overturned Roe v. Wade. Deaton blamed Warren for the decision by way of ending the filibuster on judicial nominations. That left him exposed when he later complained that Warren had not pushed hard enough to reinstate Roe.

“Now John Deaton gives us the big defense of the filibuster. The filibuster that keeps us from making Roe v. Wade the Law of the Land,” she said.

A moment that revealed came when Deaton came off as lukewarm or even frosty with regard to support for Ukraine. While not outright opposing additional funding for Kyiv as it resists Russia’s invasion, Deaton repeated a lot of right-wing—and more than a few left-wing—talking points. Among them were how supporting the continued arming of Ukraine was tantamount to warmongering.

“One mistake and we’re in World War III,” Deaton said after being asked about a comment from the previous debate that cast doubt on his supporting more funding for Kyiv. “Vladimir Putin says if it”—that is western weapons are used in Russian territory—”does happen then it’s war and nuclear options are on the table. This is frightening.”

After calling supporters of Ukraine funding “warmongers,” Deaton repeated an oft-repeated and absurd claim that the money could have gone to fund a liberal wish-list.

Warren recommitted herself to Ukraine. Noting her seat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, she said she had been to Ukraine and had met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

She hat-tipped President Biden for rallying countries behind Ukraine, “because we understand that if Putin takes Ukraine, he is coming for Poland and Estonia and other nations in Europe.”

“We are a partner for Ukraine as they fight for democracy,” Warren continued.

Deaton restated he did not oppose more funding, but he accused Ukraine of rejecting peace early in the war. Such negotiations, if ever viable, occurred as Ukraine discovered Russia’s massacres against civilians in Bucha.

Warren didn’t wear blue and yellow, but she was in Ukraine’s corner Thursday. (WMP&I)

This was not the final word on the subject, though. During a lightning round at the end, GBH’s Reilly asked candidates to name a political role model currently in office. Deaton initially picked Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar. Warren named Zelensky.

Speaking to WMP&I after the debate, Warren observed how Zelensky, a former entertainer, had risen to occasion. When asked whether Bay Staters of Ukrainian descent were on her mind, she met a woman who thought there was a public audience for the debate came up to her outside NEPM’s studio. She asked how she could help Warren’s campaign.

“And then she explained she’s Ukrainian, and what it means to be here in Western Mass, knowing that the people she loves are back in Ukraine and that there are Republicans who are saying, turn your back on Ukraine,” Warren said. “She didn’t get to come in and be part of the audience and I didn’t catch her name, but I was sure thinking about her.”

Deaton had his own moment on that question. After Warren said Zelensky, he chimed in to change his model to a foreign leader. He picked El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele.

Speaking to reporters, Deaton said Bukele cleaned up El Salvador and tourism has grown. However, El Salvador has experienced what Amnesty International has called the worse backsliding in rights since that country’s civil war 32 years ago. When asked about reported human rights abuses under Bukele, he deflected a bit.

“I don’t think Senator Warren necessarily says that she agrees with everything that Zelensky has ever done or said,” Deaton said. Among foreign leaders, he said, Bukele had done well. “I think he’s done a good job from what I know. Am I an expert in El Salvadorian civil rights? No.”

Deaton filled out questionnaires like a mod, but did he sound like one? (WMP&I)

The average person may not be that familiar with El Salvador’s issues. However, there is another reason Deaton might have highlighted Bukele. The Salvadoran president, who calls himself the world’s coolest dictator, is big into bitcoin, a cryptocurrency.

Democrats have tried to antagonize crypto supporters less of late. Even Warren, who filleted Deaton for his ties to and campaign contributions from the industry emphasized she just wants fair regulation. Critics may disagree with her characterization. Yet, rhetorically she is not hoisting the torches and pitchforks—or at least not that many.

Crypto is undivorceable from Deaton’s identity. His diatribe about the SEC is one data point. Yet, Deaton’s rhetoric transcends crypto investments alone. Bukele is the magic decoder ring.

The Biden administration has played nice(r) with Bukele to help mitigate migration up the Central American isthmus. Yet, Bukele has made clear he sees Trump as a kindred spirit and spoke at CPAC, a right-wing conference. Deaton is not just pro-crypto. He has parroted language common among right-wingers who occupy a distinct space within the cryptoverse. That space has a lot in common with the right more generally. It spurns regulation, uses apocalyptic rhetoric on the border and insists Democrats are still protecting deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein—as Deaton did in both debates.

Deaton could be sincere in his disavowal of Trump. Still, he has clearly stewed in muck that goes deeper than providing legal representation to unregulated securities. However he has moderated on policy to win, he cannot discard conservative language as he must to hold Massachusetts voters’ attention. That assumes they did not tune out after seeing the R appended to his name.