BOSTON.  A new poll released today shows Harvard Professor Elizabeth Warren with a substantial lead over Scott Brown among likely California and New York voters in the race for the Massachusetts seat in the U.S. Senate to be decided in November, raising concerns about the strength of her Republican opponent’s appeal to out-of-staters.

Warren:  “I know a little bit about Massachusetts.  Like . . . uh . . . Ted Yastrzemski.”

“This shows that Scott Brown’s support is a mile wide and an inch deep,” said Democratic pollster Peter Hyams, Jr.  “I give him style points that his supporters are actually eligible to, like, vote, but is that really such a big deal?”

Brown: “I sponsored the Centerfold-Pullout Full Disclosure Act of 2010.”

Warren’s donors in California have given her nine times as much money as Brown’s, and her support in New York, which looks down its nose at Massachusetts as a provincial backwater with bad food and inadequate wine lists, is nearly as high.

“What has Scott Brown done for you lately?” Warren told representatives of the entertainment industry at a Hollywood fund-raiser.  “I will ensure that you continue to have access to the campus of Harvard University as a setting for crappy movies like ‘Legally Blonde 2.’”

 
Crappy movies set at Harvard: Along with jobs and retirees, a leading export.

Brown responded by challenging Warren to a Lincoln-Douglas style debate that would focus on answers to twenty questions a U.S. Senator from Massachusetts should know.  “She doesn’t know Bill Buckner from Bucky Dent,” said Mike Macgillicuddy, a Brown sign-holder outside Buzzy’s Roast Beef in Boston.  “She probably doesn’t know that Chris Ford scored the first three-pointer in NBA history, either.”

Coakley:  “I am not now, nor have I ever been, a fan of the New England Celtics.”

Brown astounded the political world by defeating Democrat Martha Coakley in the 2010 race to fill the late Senator Ted Kennedy’s seat, and Warren promised she wouldn’t make the mistakes that Coakley made, such as deriding a campaign appearance at Fenway Park as a waste of time.  “I will definitely be at the ball park on Opening Day,” Warren said.  “You take the D train to get to Yankee Stadium–right?”