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BOSTON — Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren on Tuesday portrayed the upcoming election as a choice about financial accountability and regulation.

“We’re now four years into the financial crisis, and the people who broke our economy have still not been held accountable,” Warren told around 500 people at the John F. Kennedy presidential library and museum in Boston. “It’s been scandal after scandal since then.”

Warren pointed to Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's promises to repeal the Dodd-Frank financial reforms as an example of the political choice voters have to make.

“His answer for what’s broken in the financial system is to reduce the amount of regulation, cut down on the number of cops on the beat, to say to those guys as clearly as you can, go forth and do whatever you do best,” Warren said. “The alternative vision is to say no, no, no, we’ve got to have some rules ... Families need the rules, the banking system itself needs the rules.”

The event was moderated by Christopher Lydon, who has been a news anchor and radio show host on WGBH and WBUR. The library, which is non-partisan, invited Warren's opponent, Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, to a similar forum.

As she often does on the campaign trail, Warren spoke passionately about her work creating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as a way to "create a level playing field for consumers." She said the bureau is changing the system by making the terms of credit cards, mortgages and other financial instruments easier to understand, by protecting groups such as seniors or service members, by having a consumer complaint hotline and by ensuring banks comply with consumer protection laws.

Asked about President Barack Obama’s decision not to appoint her head of the agency she helped create, due to Republican opposition, Warren replied, “It wasn’t about me. This was about the best way to protect the consumer agency, and that’s what I care about.”

Warren cited recent financial problems – a trading loss at J.P. Morgan that cost the bank nearly $6 billion, and a scandal in which traders at Barclays were accused of manipulating the Libor – a benchmark interest rate – as indications of why regulations are needed.

“We’ve now tested for around 30 years the notion if we just cut taxes and leave it to the wealthy, if we just deregulate, let people do what they want to do, the largest, most powerful institutions, that somehow the scraps from that will feed the rest of us, will somehow make the rest of us wealthier,” Warren said. “It didn’t work.”

Lydon questioned Warren on why Democrats are not campaigning for public financing of campaigns as part of their crusade for financial reform. Warren responded by touting the DISCLOSE Act, an act that failed to pass the Senate this week due to Republican opposition, which would require any group that spends more than $10,000 on election-related advertising to release the names of donors who contributed at least $10,000.

“My Republican opponent Scott Brown and every other Republican filibustered so that the people who are pumping money into these independent groups can remain secret, remain in the shadows, remain behind the curtain,” Warren said. Republicans say the $10,000 ceiling gives Democrats and unions an advantage. Brown has called the bill “a cynical political ploy.”

Asked why her race against Brown is so close, Warren said stories like the DISCLOSE Act are not getting enough media attention. “These stories that are central to the functioning of our democracy, these are not the stories that are front and center,” she said.

Lydon also pointed out that Warren has raised nearly $25 million, making her one of the most well-funded Democrats in the country, and questioned whether she could avoid becoming “part of the old boys’ club.”

Warren responded, “Nobody is fooled about what I stand for… I haven’t had to trim my sails one bit for one nickel.”

The Brown campaign seized on comments Warren made when Lydon asked why America is talking about containing the interest rate on college student loans when countries like Europe are sending students to school for free. Warren did not say outright that she wanted free education, but responded, "You preach to the choir on this one." Warren said education is an investment, and government support has been withdrawn to the extent that a young person at a public university today will pay more than 350 percent of what their parents paid 30 years ago. Warren said the U.S. should invest in education again, as it has in the past.

Brown spokeswoman Alleigh Marre said, “Free college education for everyone who wants it sounds good, but someone has to pay for it.” Marre said Warren “needs to explain what additional taxes she would raise to pay for this massive new entitlement.”

The audience was a friendly one, and several attendees said they liked Warren’s work on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. “I come from a generation when it was assumed government had a role in leveling the playing field, helping people who didn’t have a voice,” said Ruth Davis, 68, a Democratic retiree from Hingham. “That’s been lost the last 30 years. She’ll bring it back.”