We’ve been saying it here since forever; Charlie Pierce told us in February; nothing has changed since then, except that the conventional wisdom seems to be crystallizing: Joe Kennedy has no real reason to run for Senate. He’s failing the Roger Mudd test.
What is, exactly, his vision for a new era? What’s in it for us? This empty campaign has inevitably turned negative, because Kennedy offers nothing, in either his record nor in his policy program, that outpaces the energetic and effective Markey. The tinniness of Kennedy’s ambition reverberates like a clanging gong. Would that it were rounded out by demonstrated, forward-looking policy ambition — but Kennedy denigrates that too, if it was Ed Markey’s idea.
Kennedy is now basing his campaign on going after some of Markey’s past votes — some taken before Joe was born. How convenient! – the Globe’s Scot Lehigh noticed.
Another Kennedy argument consisted of criticizing Markey for matters on which Kennedy himself never had to declare a contemporaneous position or where his own record is as wispy as fog. Deconstructed, one such attack ran this way: Back when I was in middle school, you voted yes on the big crime bill that’s now out of favor with Democrats. Since I’ve now decided I would have been against it, it’s a fundamental difference between us.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/06/10/opinion/its-tvs-best-new-comedy-why-is-joe-kennedy-running-us-senate/
If we could go back in time, Kennedy seems to be saying, I surely would have done better. But can Joe point to anything that he’s doing better than Ed, right now?
Here’s Kennedy touting his supposed advantage over Markey. What is this supposed to mean?
… There’s a difference, though, between your ability to file the right kind of bill and get the vote, and understanding the obstacles to change to actually bring about the kind of progressive change that I want to see. Which is why I was in nearly 20 states last cycle to help flip the House. It’s why I was campaigning from West Virginia, to Indiana, to Iowa …
The difference literally is in how you define the job. I believe that being a Senator from Massachusetts is more than voting the way that you vote and the bills that you cast [sic].
Attacks on Markey’s record from the 1990’s — and 1970’s — follow. Not very enlightening as we look forward to 2021, and rebuilding an entire economy.
If going out-of-state and campaigning was good in 2018 … why are you spending your time primarying a good progressive Senator now? And do you really claim to be better at leading a movement than the author of the Green New Deal, a visionary climate justice and economic agenda, which is regarded as the hope for the future by young people around the country — even the world?
Realizing that he’s a little short on achievements and vision, Kennedy reveals the weakness of his hand by trying to tie Markey to fossil fuel interests; belittling his work on cap-and-trade; and diminishing the importance of the Green New Deal; or saying that all of Markey’s yeoman work for gun control hasn’t eliminated the problem yet.
This is laughably desperate; but in this case, odious and actively destructive. It is the projection-politics of Karl Rove, of Swift-Boating — to try to make one’s opponent’s hard-earned advantages work against them.
Kennedy’s swift-boating notwithstanding, we know that Markey did heroic, thankless work on cap-and-trade in 2009-10. He was amazingly effective with basically no help from the grassroots, who took a holiday. (I remember being at a number of health care rallies in 2009-10; and basically no climate rallies.) It passed the House.
Let no one be misled. Every major environmental organization has endorsed Markey. Ed Markey is a climate hero. Joe Kennedy is trying to take out a climate hero, and therefore is not a climate hero.
And in general, his backward-looking attacks expose his own shortcomings more than they diminish Markey.
What you describe of Kennedy’s approach sounds like this clip from Bill Maher (though I would have cleaned up the language).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efbm3JS0J04
I was in middle school and high school when I got the Iraq War right and Markey for it wrong. If anything, reminding voters that the incumbent has been around for so long and wrong in so many issues might backfire.
There were Cassandras in the run-up to the 2008 Great Recession who “predicted” that a terrible financial collapse was just over the horizon. The 2008 Great Recession did not make them reliable economists. We have a very strong tendency to remember when we were correct and forget when we were mistaken.
I don’t dispute that you got the Iraq War right as a middle schooler. I strongly suspect that Mr. Markey was getting a whole LOT of things right that you weren’t even aware of at that age.
Your antipathy to long-time incumbents is an unfortunate bias that too often seems to cloud your often astute political insights. I’m not trying to bust your chops, I’m trying to gently remind you that with luck you too will one day be facing 70. I suspect that you’ll have a different view of hot young political stars at that point — especially after several decades of watching them climb into the sky only to explode.
I’m reminded of the old joke about the guy who says to his friend “My dad is really something. He was really cool when I was a kid, and got REALLY stupid when I was about 15. Then he somehow got smart again when I turned about 40. Funny how that works.”
I actually respect that argument. I think Markey’s best case is that its likelier we have a Senate majority an we need someone with his experience in office to shepherd the GND and other priorities through.I think if he makes that argument loud and clear Joe Kennedy has a much harder time. I respect they argument a whole lot more than what I am seeing from his campaign surrogates.
I think getting into a progressive pissing contest as Fred would call it works against him. I think the Sunrise Movement, the Bernie and Warren campaign workers fleeing to the Markey campaign, and John Walsh all are missing the mark.
Neal is not doing that to beat Morse, and unlikely the Kennedy and Markey, they do represent different wings of the party. Neal is pointing to the amount of power he has and that his district and our state loses if he loses. Morse is pointing out he hasn’t used that power to effectively fight Trump. That’s a real fight.
Instead we have two liberals saying they are each the bigger liberal and that makes Markey’s past deviations from liberalism fair game.
As someone proudly cast my vote for Ted Kennedy time after time, if I may speak for JC, it’s not an apathy we have for long-time incumbents, it is our apathy for Markey. If after 40 years, Kennedy was not known as “the Lion of the Senate” he would have gotten my vote two more times.
That’s my basic math with Markey. Ted Kennedy, 47 years serving Massachusetts and recognized as one of the most effective Senators of his era or Ed Markey, who wants six more years to finish what he started 43 years ago. Markey comes up short and coincidentally Kennedy’s nephew is running against him. I have no high aspirations for JoeIII, and I’m grateful for Markey being a reliable vote, but time to try someone new.
Not sure the logic that previous votes cannot be attacked because they happened in the past. I find it very strange that the same people on this blog and in #mapoli who regularly attack Biden for his flip flops and bad votes continue with their hagiographic depictions of Markey engaging in the same behavior.
Elections are won based on who best represents the future. I see Markey and his supporters re-airing an ad from 1974 and talking about bills he passed in the 1980’s. If that’s germane, it’s also germane to attack his support for a bad crime bill in the 1990’s a bad war in the early 2000’s. Not to mention NAFTA and Glass Steagall.
If anything the Kennedy name is both a blessing and a curse. There’s no way he would have his present seat without it, but frankly, he would be taken more seriously in this race if he did not have it. He is making the exact same argument Ayanna Pressley made in her successful primary challenge. Identical on the issues, but only one person is going to make national waves and rise to this moment and it’s not the incumbent. Exact same argument.. If he were Alex Morse or Ayanna Pressley the #MaPoli progressives would be rightly calling Markey the out of touch incumbent as Capuano was.
Well, at least we seem to agree that Mr. Kennedy is approximately as qualified as Ms. Pressley was. Of course, your summary of her primary campaign strategy is very different from mine.
It appears to me that both Mr. Kennedy and Ms. Pressley have the following strategy in common:
There are at least two HUGE differences between Ms. Pressley’s primary campaign and Mr. Kennedy’s:
Mr. Kennedy is making a gamble that the appeal of his last name among statewide Democrats will be comparable to Ms. Pressley’s appeal among black voters in CD-7. I think that’s a losing proposition.
I hope that MA voters are not shallow enough to fall for Mr. Kennedy’s posturing and the thinly-veiled promise of a return to Camelot.
Mr. Markey is the real deal and, so far as I can tell, Mr. Kennedy is a cardboard cutout.
I guess it comes down to what you think the Senate is for. Primarily writing, debating, and passing legislation or as a front bench for future presidents and party leaders to make their case to the country and use the national bully pulpit to make change. I think both views are clearly clashing here.
The former view is what Joe Biden and LBJ would argue is what made the institution great and how they contributed to the country. The latter view brought us the campaigns and careers of Bobby Kennedy, Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren.
I think Markey will continue to be a national leader on the issue of climate if re-elected. I think Joe Kennedy will be a national leader full stop. Someone who should elevate if we want a vigorous front bench to take us into the future. He speaks Spanish, he visibly reaches out to immigrant and minority communities, he’s committed to the Green New Deal and Medicare for all without the baggage of past commitments to failed wars on terror and crime.
If the 74 ad is the one I think it is I think that’s just saying Markey has never been afraid to stand up for what he believes, political poohbahs be damned. It’s not a claim that he was right all along on a particular issue.
I’m saying if the campaign is referencing positive stuff from the 70’s and 80’s, fair criticism about votes from that time is valid. Fair being the operative word. I was quite vocal that attacks on Markey’s record on choice were entirely out of line and intellectually dishonest, but I do think it’s worth questioning his commitments on crime, demilitarizing the police, demilitarizing our foreign policy, fair trade, and banking regulations.
For what it’s worth: I’m not going to defend Markey’s vote on Iraq, nor anyone else’s. It was the wrong decision, and a bad mistake. It’s fair game in a way that his record on choice eg. really isn’t, given his 37-year history on that issue. I think the question is whether you think he’s going to repeat that kind of mistake going forward. For a variety of reasons I find it unlikely.
And I’m not really sure what it gets Joe Kennedy to bring it up, since we can’t go back in time and find out how he would have voted. We only know what he’s saying with 20/20 hindsight. He was 22 years old in 2003; was he out in the streets protesting — as I was? (Does that matter at this point?) As far as I know, he’s not like Obama, who had receipts for being an opponent of the war in 2002.
As I’ve said a million times, I think Markey has been prescient on any number of issues. I think he’s indispensable right now and going forward. But this was just a bad vote, and he has to live with that.
My biggest pet peeve with the Kennedy people is their attack on Markey’s record in choice. My biggest pet peeve with the Markey people is that the same voices who criticized Biden’s evolution are also arguing Ed’s the second coming of Bernie-he ain’t. He’s a career politician with the compromises that a 46 year career in Washington bring with them for better or for worse.
He should own being an insider and school Joe on what he would get done in a majority. Joe should discuss how he would govern differently/more effectively than Markey rather than these back and forths on the past. We are not getting the debate we deserve from either candidate.
Basically agree.
w/r/t/ Ed as the “second coming of Bernie” …
I think in the “reality-based community” — yes, it still exists — there’s a growing realization that in the face of right-wing attacks for 40+ years, radical measures are necessary just to restore the status quo ante on any number of things. You could say that Elizabeth Warren’s campaign, and much of Bernie’s, was largely based on this, which explains their appeal to the “professional-managerial class”: The fear of downward mobility, that something has been taken away from you.
This applies to middle-class wages, tax equity, college affordability, voting rights, consumer/environmental protections, gun control, and so forth. With health care still precarious even after Obamacare, stances considered “radical”, like Medicare for All, which used to be mainstream Democratic positions, have become mainstream again. And in order to literally save the world (and the economy), nothing less than a Green New Deal will do the job.
All of these things are “conservative” in a way, in the sense that they promise protection vs. the dislocations of rapacious, greedy capitalism.
So maybe Markey is bandwagoning onto Bernie’s leftism. But that energy exists for a reason — a sense that we’re losing something. That’s the reality that we’re living.
*(Nb: Racial justice is not part of the status quo ante, so this mindset only goes so far. Whether we include that in a “radical restoration” is being determined right now. We have to make that happen.)
That’s fair. Oddly my justifications for Biden to those same people is equivalent to their justification for Markey. Mainly that they move back and forth with the center of the party, but as the center of the party shifts left, so will they.