The two crisscrossed the Bay State Saturday. | AP Photos Warren sunny, Brown dour on trail

BOSTON — Elizabeth Warren campaigned Saturday with the air of a winner, with her surrogates invoking the Kennedy name and alluding to the history-making potential to become the state’s first female senator.

Scott Brown offered a more dour message, lamenting a country “in trouble” and alluding to “dirty tricks” by Democrats willing to do anything to cling to power.


( PHOTOS: Massachusetts Senate race)

As the two crisscrossed the Bay State Saturday, their closing pitches couldn’t be more different, both in message and in tone.

Warren, who’s now widely expected to win, rallied with civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis and Gov. Deval Patrick.

“We can taste it. Can you taste it?,” Warren said to cheers by the hundreds who gathered at the Reggie Lewis Center in downtown Boston. “Can you smell it? Can you feel it? It’s up to us. … Are you ready?”

Speaking before her, Lewis — a historic figure, himself, as one of the original Freedom Riders who nearly lost his life in Selma, Ala. — argued that electing Warren would rekindle fond memories of Camelot.

“We need a senator from this state in the tradition of John F. Kennedy, in the tradition of [Sen.] Ted Kennedy,” he said. “Vote like you’ve never voted before. Vote for Elizabeth Warren.”

Brown, a first-term Republican who won the seat in a special election two years ago after Kennedy died, said electing Warren would only exacerbate the country’s problems.

“The unemployment numbers have gone up nationally. They’re going up, last three months, locally in Massachusetts. GDP growth is flat. We are in a financial emergency. We are overspending, we are overtaxing, we are taking too much of your hard-earned money and bringing it to Washington. We’re in trouble,” Brown said in his opening remarks to supporters.

“Make no mistake about if folks, they want the so-called ‘Kennedy seat’ back. They still refer to it as that. They want to basically have a rubberstamp down there, somebody who will be in lockstep with their party,” he continued.

But Warren appeared more than happy to embrace the Kennedy narrative, even bringing along former Rhode Island Rep. Patrick Kennedy to her events Saturday.

And Patrick attempted to poke holes in Brown’s argument that he’s a bipartisan figure, noting the incumbent’s support for tax cuts for the wealthy and Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan’s “fiscal plan.”

“I’ve heard the other candidate describe himself as an independent voice,” Patrick said, yielding screams of “Liar!” “We don’t need an independent voice at the time of a campaign, we need an independent vote when it’s time to govern. We need Barack Obama and Elizabeth Warren.”

Patrick’s jabs allowed Warren to deliver a more positive, forward-looking speech — meant to inspire her loyal band of supporters.

“We do believe that we build a future together,” Warren said. To which one woman to replied, “Yes we are.”

“And we’re in this together. Even in this speech, we are,” Warren continued.

Warren rattled off Brown’s votes against the president’s jobs bills and his refusal to extend unemployment benefits. In what’s been a constant theme, she warned that he would provide Republicans a realistic shot of taking over the Senate. But her loudest round of applause came when she invoked her pledge to women: “I want to go to Washington to stand up for equal rights for women.”

Fully cognizant that he needs at least 60 percent of independents and about 20 percent of Democrats to win Tuesday, Brown enlisted an elected Democrat to drive home his message.

“Scott Brown’s opponent is trying to make this all about choice. So let’s talk about choice. I choose bipartisanship. I choose fiscal recovery. That’s why I’m exercising my choice for Scott Brown for United States Senate,” said Mary Ellen Manning, a Democrat elected to the governor’s council six times. “I can tell you from personal experience there is no compromise within the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party has become a cult.”

For voters excited by the opportunity to send the first woman from Massachusetts to the U.S. Senate, Brown countered with his best historical turning point: The demise of moderate senators.

“Joe Lieberman’s leaving, Kent Conrad’s leaving, Olympia Snowe’s leaving, Richard Lugar’s leaving. All these people are leaving in the middle and as a result, what do you have? On the left and the right, you have this tension that’s basically making our Senate, making our country come to gridlock,” he said. “We’re Americans first and we’re in trouble and we need to find solutions together.”

He closed by asking military members to complete “one more mission” — the boots on the ground in the closing hours to produce an upset that would ricochet from Beacon Hill to Capitol Hill.

“You’re tired of the dirty tricks, the tremendous amounts of outside money here, the distorting and misleading ads here,” Brown said. “One more mission, folks.”