(Newser) – The Scott Brown campaign has admitted that it has been paying homeless people to demonstrate in Boston's working-class Roxbury neighborhood with signs declaring themselves "Obama Supporters for Brown." Benjamin Thomas, the former city elections commissioner running the operation, tells the Boston Herald that these "supporters" are paid a per-diem that "works out to" about $8 an hour, financed through the GOP's MassVictory program. But he insists that all of them would support Brown even if they weren't being paid.

Thomas, who is black, says the program is designed to appeal to black voters. He accused Elizabeth Warren of putting "no money in the black community because urban America … is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party." One Warren supporter appeared to help his cause yesterday, directing a racial comment at Brown's campaign office. "You know those field people and those house people? This election is about that," a man holding Warren signs shouted. A Warren spokeswoman called the comment "absolutely unacceptable." (Read more Scott Brown stories.)

