Well, we’ve had the timer up for fifty (50) days. And that was apparently not enough time for Joe Kennedy to figure out how to schedule and prepare for tonight’s climate forum at Stonehill College.
Obviously I’m all in for Markey; but Joe might win. And I want him to be a climate champion if he does. I want him to fight for that vote. So it is genuinely disappointing that Kennedy decided to make excuses and miss this thing. He is treating this dismissively as a “single issue”; not health and energy and transportation and the economy and jobs and national security — everything we care about, all wrapped up in one. It defines our future, for better or worse.
And Kennedy has decided that he can run the table with all those Dem voters for whom these things (somehow) aren’t particularly a priority. Maybe he’s right. But it’s a shame and I’m sure not going to help him.
Let’s recount Kennedy’s reasons for missing the event:
1. It’s Veterans Day weekend.
2. It should be held next year, because everyone’s focused on impeachment now;
3. It should be held in a “frontline community”. (Defined as what? Chelsea? Chatham? Fort Point? Wherever a micro-burst touches down?)
Needless to say, Joe didn’t suspend his campaign because it was Veterans Day Weekend.
While we are out traveling across the state this weekend, our Kennedy Campus Captains keep the energy up at Kennedy HQ! pic.twitter.com/XeC9OARgL9
— Joe Kennedy III (@joekennedy) November 10, 2019
In any event, if Joe wants to seem like a guy with policy depth and political courage — and not just a backbencher trading on a legacy name — this is not a good sign.
One way or another, we need Joe Kennedy to pull his weight on this stuff. It’s going to take everyone.
When I got an email today from the Markey campaign indicating this debate was on I assumed it was going to include all the candidates. Truth be told I too am not a fan of single-issue debates unless that is the general model and we have a series of debates about various discreet issues. I also take his point that this may be too early. I generally prefer these to wait until after convention once the ballot is set.
How are these reasons wrong?
Yesterday I was at a speech and debate tournament in Natick for my team and my fellow judges (largely a combo of parents and teachers) were not talking about this debate. This is a pretty educated crowd and we even moderates student debates about climate change. But they were talking about the rising cost and competitiveness of college, their fears that Warren might not beat Trump, and their takes on the impeachment. Same with my students. Like it or not, 2020 and impeachment will dominate this cycle.
Nobody outside of the campaigns and activist circles is paying attention to this race right now. My father and brother are pretty plugged in and they didn’t even know that Kennedy was running against Markey when I brought it up today at lunch, but they knew Bloomberg was jumping into 2020 and Buttigieg was rising in the polls.
Kennedy claims climate change is one of his priority concerns but he has no history of real work on the issue. Markey is the singular leader in Congress on the subject. Kennedy is desperately hoping that the Senate race is not a referendum on the subject and that he can blur the massive distinctions between their respective work on this issue. Kennedy is NOT a leader on climate and his failure to show last night was weasel campaign politics.
Being “all in” for Markey is fine. But your really “in the bag” for Markey. What happened to the days when you had the intellectual honesty to acknowledge all the candidates–especially the ones who showed up on the stage with Markey? And when did you decide to go low rent around here and pimp out your mast head for a cheesy countdown clock that is basically goading a candidate you oppose 10 months before an election because they are “ducking” a made up debate buy your candidate.
What I found most interesting about the Globe’s coverage is the fact that your clean govt guy; champion for the little guy is in the tank with the Black Rock hedge funds folks. Just confirms my belief that Markey plays games of pretending to work for all the right issues, but never seemed to make a big impact after 43 years in office–mostly because he is a creature of the system and nothing more.
This primary is needlessly acrimonious and would be enhanced by ranked choice. I think Kennedy critics have a point that it does not look like he is taking this issue seriously enough. I think his defenders have a point that this debate was a waste of time considering how few people attended how little coverage it got. A better debate would have been a prime time one on television later in the Senate primary.
Riordon is worth another look. She lacks the baggage of incumbency that Markey brings and the Kennedy baggage Joe has. She is also correct that a carbon tax that is reinvested to working class communities as a rebate check is a great way to tax the carbon externalities corporations are currently not paying for while getting working class buy in for a program.
If we had a ranked choice voting system I think she would have my first vote. She may ultimately get it anyway if the men in the race keep acting like children.
Not sure I’m ready to bet the house that Liss-Riordan makes it past convention. Not sure why you see either Markey’s incumbency or Kennedy’s name as “baggage”. I figure those are net positives.
So?
I also dislike single-issue debates. But maybe that’s just because my top issue always ends up near the bottom, even though I believe it’s more existential than climate change.
As much as I am in Markey’s corner on this primary, it seems tiring to imagine a situation where Kennedy wants to debate issue Y next month, and throws a fit if Ed doesn’t clear his schedule to accommodate that.