Ed Markey Sends Joe Kennedy Home
The man who couldn't give a good reason for his Senate bid beside his own last name was dealt a decisive defeat.
For the first time in history, a Kennedy lost a statewide race in Massachusetts. Congressman Joe Kennedy III failed in his bid to oust a sitting Senator last night, losing his primary bid in embarrassing fashion.
The winner was Senator Ed Markey. Markey first came to Congress in 1976, serving in the House until he won his seat in the Senate in 2013. He’s by far one of the most progressive members of the Democratic delegation on the hill. Markey helped write the Green New Deal and has been vocal on economic issues. He is, in short, everything the Democratic Party needs right now.
Naturally, Kennedy decided to primary him. Kennedy is as milquetoast a moderate as possible. Just 39 years old, he tried to leverage his youth into some sort of message about a need for “new blood” in government. It would have been a laughable sentiment even if Kennedy wasn’t a member of a political dynasty.
Kennedy’s centrist, corporatist politics are strikingly out of tune with the young people he claims to speak for. He failed to convey concrete policy positions. Not once did Kennedy provide a reason for his quest to unseat Markey beyond the fact that Kennedy is a Kennedy, and Kennedys are meant to hold high office.
Markey, meanwhile, has progressive bonafides coming out of his ears. Here’s one of the best political ads I’ve ever seen:
Young voters deeply care about policy. As I’ve highlighted before in this newsletter, millennials and especially zoomers have been thrust into a world on fire. We’re in the midst of our second economic crisis since 2008. There’s been near-constant social upheaval. The planet is dying. Kennedy’s politics, and in a way his very existence, speak to the old way of doing things. The old way got us here. Young voters want to be told in no uncertain terms exactly how candidates plan on making things better and just how much better things will get.
Markey has made a career of doing just that. There’s been a lot made of how Markey’s campaign completely revamped their social media strategy to drum up support to fend off Kennedy’s challenge. But that social media campaign and those incredible ads were backed up the fact that it was quite clear that Markey actually believed in what he was saying.
That’s how Markey became vastly popular on the Internet. It’s how a Kennedy failed to be endorsed by the Boston Globe for the first time, and it’s how a Kennedy lost a statewide election in Massachusetts.
It's possible that this could have been a closer race if Kennedy wasn’t as inspiring as a wet paper bag. But it was also a rejection of the wet paper bags that have dominated the party for decades.
As for Kennedy, he’ll be back at some point. It’s hard to imagine so ambitious and so young slinking off to a cushy lobbying job for good. The rehabilitation campaign has already started.
Laugh at the idea that Kennedy losing was actually him doing a service to his family, but that’s the kind of absurd narrative that’s generated to protect the rich and powerful. That’s the sort of narrative that allows them to recover from embarrassing electoral defeats. Don’t be shocked if the voters reject him again.
The Massachusetts primary wasn’t a progressive clean sweep. Congressman Richard Neal, for instance, fended off a noteworthy challenge from Alex Morse. Congressman Stephen Lynch also won. Both are old-school Kennedy Democrats. But Kennedy’s loss is major news, and a sign of the times.
Joe Kennedy will not be going to the Senate. Democrats in Massachusetts soundly rejected the idea that Kennedy deserved a Senate seat simply because he wanted one, despite offering no new ideas or credibility.
That’s the way it should be.
Dynastic politics are undemocratic. They go against every idea that America claims to value. We know that some voters are more sympathetic to the idea of dynasties and royalties than they’d care to admit, but hereditary power has no place here.
Neither does mealy-mouthed corporatism. The man who doesn’t want to legalize marijuana because it would make it harder for cops to conduct warrantless searches will not be going to the Senate.
Good riddance.