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MA-Sen: Only One Candidate Wants to Be a U.S. Senator

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There has been one nagging reality about the upcoming primary for U.S. Senate between Ed Markey and Joe Kennedy III that has not been discussed nearly enough.

Only one of those two candidates actually wants to be a U.S. Senator.

Logistically, the main differences between being a U.S. Representative and a U.S. Senator are just the size of the district and the length of the term. But a legislator in Congress is a legislator in Congress. Ed Markey has been doing it for a while now and he’s quite good at it. He’s still producing as a legislator, from being lead Senate sponsor on the Green New Deal to championing Net Neutrality to drafting legislation with Elizabeth Warren & Bernie Sanders to end qualified immunity in policing, and much more. And he wants to keep legislating, with progressive Massachusetts values animating that legislation. He wants to *be* our U.S. Senator.

Is there anyone in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, regardless of whether you support Markey, JKIII, or neither of them, who doesn’t think that Joe Kennedy III is using the Senate seat as a steppingstone to a future presidential campaign? Anyone? (Yes, as an aside, the prospect of Elizabeth Warren running for President in 2020 was evident while she was running for re-election in 2018; but, she was consistently voting & legislating like Elizabeth Warren throughout, and she wasn’t trying to displace a strong, progressive legislator to attain the office. As such, the situations are not analogous.)

One of the many knocks on JKIII’s candidacy is that he hasn’t clearly articulated *why* he is running. He hasn’t been able to do so because it is impolitic to say, “because it’s easier to run for President as a Senator than as a Representative; and, I don’t want to wait for an open U.S. Senate seat in four or six years because the possibility of facing Ayanna Pressley in a primary is just too daunting.”

Nota bene: even JKIII’s most coherent articulation for a reason why he’s running, that “it’s time for [a vague, nondescript] change” rings hollow because, in 2018, instead of standing with progressive voices of reform & change, like Rachael Rollins for Suffolk County DA (JKIII stood with conservative Greg Henning for the open seat), Ayanna Pressley for Congress (JKIII endorsed the incumbent), and Nika Elugardo for State Representative (JKIII endorsed the incumbent), Joe Kennedy III stood with the status quo candidate. Every. Single. Time. So, “change” just ain’t the reason he’s running, and it’s insultingly disingenuous that he’s exploitatively co-opting such a message.

Running for President is JKIII’s birthright, and the reality is that he wants to waste no time in claiming that birthright. So be it.

Now, ambition on its face is not inherently bad. Right now, in the Veepstakes, Senator Kamala Harris is on the receiving end of “too ambitious” garbage, which, in her case, is most definitely heavily tinged with racist and sexist undertones. Ambition isn’t a bad thing when it’s a motivator for positive action. But this is an apples-to-oranges situation when compared to JKIII.

The problem comes into play when JKIII nakedly uses the Senate seat – and, specifically, his future potential voting record on the floor of the U.S. Senate – as a steppingstone to his actual goal of being President. The result will be a voting record calculated from day one to appeal more to Iowa caucus & New Hampshire primary voters (and, even further from the progressive left, independent voters in Ohio & Florida) four, eight, or twelve years down the line rather than Massachusetts families in 2021.

The outcome of such a calculation can be awfully bad votes taken to appear to be of presidential timber at the time but prove in the long run to be tragic folly. The starkest examples from recent history are future Presidential nominees and then-Senators John Kerry and Hillary Clinton voting in support of the authorization for the use of military force against Iraq, in October 2002. We already see this behavior manifesting in JKIII’s voting record, a stark example of which is his being too accommodating to the Hedge Fund Set, from which he has benefited handsomely fundraising-wise.

I want my U.S. Senator to really, really want to be my U.S. Senator, and to vote in the U.S. Senate without the taint of long-term presidential ambition, with my interests & positions prioritized ahead of the perceived interests & positions of hypothetical future Iowa and Ohio presidential election voters or those who would finance such a future campaign.

One of the two candidates in the primary for U.S. Senate fits that bill. One doesn’t.

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Fascist Coup or Grifter’s End Game?

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WC Feilds playing cards

Never give a sucker an even break.

For good reason, people are concerned about the worst case scenario.

Trump is sabotaging the Post Office, sending mercenaries to beat demonstrators in American cities (those run by Democrats, anyway), and figuring out how to rig or postpone the election.

I have some troubling scenarios of my own. But maybe what we are seeing is something else, as another BMGer has already suggested.

Two years ago our own gmoke wrote:

According to The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for It… Every Time by Maria Konnikova (NY: Viking, 2016 ISBN 978-0-525-42741-4), there’s a structure to the con:
The put-up picks out the mark
The play establish a bond
The rope lays out the pitch
The tale proffers the benefit
The convincer is where the conman lets us win
The breakdown is where we start to lose
The send is where the victim is recommitted
The touch is where the mark is completely fleeced.
The blow-off gets rid of the mark ASAP
The fix prevents marks from making official complaints

On that score, we are at the end game: the fix.

If so, Trump’s provocations are bullying threats designed so that, when the time comes, we will agree to immunity and goodness knows what else for him to simply leave. To get us to give him a deal better than Nixon’s, with the same thin rationale “to move on and bring the country together” etc. while telling ourselves we got off lucky.

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Jesse Mermell for Congress

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Hello BMG. I haven’t been on here in a while, but I wanted to take a moment to discuss the Fourth Congressional District race. Also, for those who may be new here, this is my personal endorsement, not an official word from the Mermell campaign (where I have volunteered a little).

I first met Jesse in 2002 (yikes, that seems hard to believe, but it’s true), when she was managing the reelection campaign of State Senator Pam Resor. Resor’s reelection was not a sure thing, but she won, and Jesse ran a professional operation. In 2007, she became the youngest person ever elected to the Brookline Board of Selectmen. She served for six years there, then became Communications Director for Governor Patrick and led his Strong Women Strong Families initiative.

She also served as State Director of the Massachusetts Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired, and until last September, when she stepped down to run for Congress, she was President of the Alliance for Business Leadership, an association of progressive business leaders.

As you may know, she was running for this seat the last time it opened up, but Joe Kennedy entered the race, making it impossible. (It would be a little ironic if Joe lost to Markey and Jesse got Joe’s seat.)

This year — and this is good news, given current trends — the field is broad and strong. But there is only one candidate who has experience, a long record of fighting for progressive causes, and youth. Yes I think youth matters.

Jesse Mermell is exactly the sort of person we should be sending to Congress. I know that a long commitment to the Democratic Party is not going to swing this election, but I’d be happy if it did. Elected or unelected, Jesse has served the Democratic Party and Democratic causes for her entire adult life. Her friendship with Ayanna Pressley is well known, but her tireless commitment to that amazing win (which, lest we forget, was considered a longshot at the beginning) is perhaps less well known.

She’s got policy background, a communications background, and a lot of time on the actual ground working for the people of the district.

Like I said, this is a solid field, and this race will be tight. A few of the other candidates have done considerable self-funding, but Jesse’s campaign has been purely grassroots. I would encourage everyone to learn more about Jesse here.

And if you’re moved to donate, you can do so here.

The Fourth Congressional District has several good choices, but Jesse stands out. The voters have a chance to choose someone who’s in for the long fight, has never wavered from her core issues, and is young enough to scare the opposition. I hope they take that chance and nominate Jesse Mermell.

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House voting on climate amendments RIGHT NOW

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The Massachusetts House of Representatives is right now taking up amendments on its climate bill. They passed the basic bill already, and it has not elicited praise from environment advocates. Here’s Ben Hellerstein, quoted by State House News Service:

“A climate scientist recently said that we’re risking a planet-wide ‘five-alarm fire’ with global warming. Now’s the time to show up with a fire hose. Instead, the House is bringing a toy squirt gun,” Ben Hellerstein, state director for Environment Massachusetts, said. “With its weak ‘net zero emissions’ target, this bill would allow the use of dirty, polluting oil and gas for decades. At a time when we must move swiftly to end the use of fossil fuels, this bill postpones action in favor of studies and ‘roadmaps,’ requiring nothing to be done for three years. While the bill takes some positive steps to expand solar energy, it falls far short of what’s needed to protect our health and help ensure a safe future.”

It includes 10-year interim commitments for emissions reductions, which is not good enough. We need five-year interim commitments, at the very least. It is supposed to get us to net zero emissions by 2050 which is also considered to be a soft and fuzzy commitment. There is no commitment to 100% renewable energy by 2040, as a bill by Sean Garballey and Marjorie Decker would have required. Other than that, some studies; a handful of sweeteners; but little that drives down emissions, now.

So we’re looking for success on a handful of amendments, as put together by ProgressiveMass:

7 Establishing a Net Zero Stretch Energy Code (Gouveia), which requires the creation of a net-zero building code

#17 Clarification of Indirect Emissions (Rogers), which would ensure that gas leaks, landfill emissions, and agricultural emissions get counted in the bill’s definition of “indirect emissions”

#21 Definition of Non-Carbon Emitting (Ehrlich), which removes landfill methane, anaerobic digester gas, and biomass fuel from the definition of “non-emitting” energy sources

#31 Clean Energy Implementation (Decker), which accelerates the annual increase in renewable energy required by the renewable portfolio standard

#46 Heating and Transportation Clean Energy Transition (Decker) , which sets requirements to reduce emissions in the heating and transportation sectors

#52 Environmental Justice (Madaro), which provides critical protections for low-income residents, people of color, and limited English proficient communities and establishes a definition of environmental justice population.

#56 Investing in Working & Environmental Justice Communities (Robinson), which ensures that at least 40% of revenue generated from carbon pricing scheme be rebated to low-income households

#62 Accelerating Emission Target Deadlines (Sabadosa), which moves up the deadline for the Baker administration to issue 2030 and 2040 targets as well as regulations to achieve net zero by 2050

#101 Rooftop Solar (Lewis), which would require rooftop solar panels to be installed on new residential and commercial buildings

It continues to be a frustration that Speaker DeLeo and Energy Chair Tom Golden are still slow-rolling climate action in a state dominated by Democrats at the legislative level. And this is after poll after poll indicates broad public support for strong climate action; when some 70 legislators have signed a Climate Action Now statement … what else do they need? What “hero opportunity” are they waiting for?

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BIG GET: Globe endorses Markey, citing past work and vision for future

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This was very gratifying to see this morning. Every word of the Globe’s endorsement of Markey seemed like an echo of what I’ve been trying to say here, only more specifically- and elegantly-stated. It is a really good case.

Boston Globe endorses Markey

Send Ed Markey back to the Senate

Since Edward J. Markey was first elected to Congress in 1976, he’s often been ahead of the curve in championing progressive causes, whether it’s cracking down on insider trading, ensuring consumer access to wireless spectrum technologies, or helping create a broad movement to put a freeze on nuclear arms.

… What distinguishes Markey’s leadership from many other Democrats, however, is that he’s pushed the country to think bigger about its response to the pandemic, whether it’s a call to fight the disease with a new kind of Manhattan Project, pushing for larger-scale stimulus, or articulating that this political moment is akin to the conditions that made possible FDR’s New Deal. In this moment, the country and the Commonwealth need leaders who won’t settle for incremental progress, who recognize the profound underlying conditions of inequality and racial injustice that exacerbate our problems, and who notice that the table is set for transformational change and can help carry it out with legislative proposals.

As I’ve said since he first ran for Senate, we’re just coming into Ed Markey’s era. He has been cultivating this garden of energy transformation for 40-plus years.

He will connect the post-Watergate era of public-interest politics with the post-Trump/COVID era of renewal.  He’s a guy from a humble background who nonetheless thinks big, who takes policy and law seriously as a means of transforming life for the better. He does his job, maybe better than anyone else in Congress.

Ed Markey at Robbins Farm Park, Arlington

Ed Markey at Robbins Farm Park, Arlington MA 7/28/2020

And the work that he’s going to do next year — Lord willing and the creek don’t rise — is going to be the most consequential of any legislator, maybe ever. No, that’s not an exaggeration: The confluence of COVID-19, with its devastation of our health and incomes, our impatience for racial justice, and the ever-worsening crush of climate-fueled disasters will ensure that. And whatever a President Joe Biden and a Democratic Congress can make happen, will happen likely in the first 100 days. Make what you will of the Green New Deal, aspirational or not. But it is the framework for tackling our largest challenges — rebuilding our economy, climate change, racial justice, health, income inequality — not independently from each other, but woven together, harmoniously, “intersectionally”, building power in coalitions instead of siloing and hostage-taking. In yesterday’s baking heat at Robbins Farm Park in Arlington, Markey connected these very dots. We need young warrior-visionaries who are “close to the pain”, like the formidable Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. But we also need canny, Belichick-like strategic minds like Markey, who know all the moving parts, who can scan the field and game out possibilities. And they both need as much help as they can get: From a President with an unprecedented mandate for change, and a grassroots upheaval the likes of which we’ve never seen.

There is youthful idealism; and then there is a man whose time has come, whose lifelong labor is finally close to fruition. May you gather well, Ed Markey.

(Vote by mail before September 1, everyone.)

(As a side note, I might detect the very welcome influence of the Globe’s new Opinion page editor, Bina Venkataraman — former reporter, MIT big thinker, and Obama administration climate advisor. I’ve got her book The Optimist’s Telescope on order; she talked about it with WBUR’s Meghna Chakrabarti here.)

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Mafia Bust Out on a National Scale

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I’ve thought from the beginning that Trmp et alia are performing a Mafia bust-out on a national scale. Nothing is beneath them. It’s all “Fck you, pay me,” as this clip from “Goodfellas” points out.

https://youtu.be/WeK9e07Y65o

What’s a bust out?

Definition: A forced bankruptcy of a person or an organization, usually through theft, fraud or extortion.
Source: http://mafiatrickster.tripod.com/kikai/mafiaslang.html

Once you get into business with a mobster, they take over. They exploit the business, run it into the ground, and then torch it for the insurance.

This is exactly what Trmp et alia are doing. Everything is a profit center, an opportunity to grift some graft, and wet the beak. It is why I would not be at all surprised to find out, someday down the road, that Trmp et alia were getting kickbacks on PPE and anything else that can put a buck in their pockets.

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