Senator Maddow?

Is Rachel Maddow gunning for Scott Brown’s Senate seat? The Massachusetts Republican thinks she is. In a fundraising e-mail sent out Tuesday afternoon, he says the state’s Democratic Party is trying to get the MSNBC host to challenge him for his newly acquired Senate seat.

“It’s only been a couple of months since I’ve been in office, and before I’ve even settled into my new job, the political machine in Massachusetts is looking for someone to run against me,” Brown writes. “And you’re not going to believe who they are supposedly trying to recruit—liberal MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow.”

His evidence appears to rest on a message sent out by Massachusetts Democratic Party chairman John Walsh on Twitter the same day a Facebook page supporting a Maddow bid went live. “Some are talking about you running vs. Scott Brown in ’12,” Walsh tweeted, and the Boston blog Universal Hub suggested the message could have been meant for Maddow. In three weeks, more than 3,000 people have joined the Facebook page dedicated to getting Maddow to run.

More Men Claiming Sexual Harassment

According to and article in  THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, not only have men been hit harder by the recession, but a new study shows they are also increasingly reporting claims of sexual harassment. Around 16.4 percent (2,094 incidents) of all sexual-harassment claims were filed by men in the fiscal year 2009, up from 15.4 percent (1,869 claims) in 2006, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Employment lawyers believe that “locker room” attitudes and verbal abuse have been at the heart of many new claims. “More types of behaviors are put in the sexual-harassment bucket when men are the victims,” one lawyer says. Up until the recession, another added, men might have simply dealt with sexual harassment by finding a new job instead of suing. But with fewer jobs on the market, that choice is more limited.

Tuesday, 3/23/10, Public Square