Instead of challenging Sen. Markey, Joe Kennedy III should run for governor


He can do more for Massachusetts.

That was the late Sen. Ted Kennedy’s campaign slogan when he first ran for the Senate in 1962.

In-the-never-let-a-good-line-go-to-waste-department, it was the same slogan that John F. Kennedy used 10 years earlier when he was first elected to the Senate in 1952.

Maybe U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy III, seeking to retake the “Kennedy seat” in the Senate, could dust it off and use it against incumbent Democrat Sen. Eddie Markey.

This Joe Kennedy’s potential campaign is similar to the 1962 Ted Kennedy campaign that split the Democrat Party in two when the inexperienced Kennedy defeated accomplished Attorney General Edward J. McCormack in the bitter primary race to fill the seat JFK vacated upon being elected president two years earlier.

Newly elected President Kennedy, upon resigning with four years left on his term, pressured then Gov. Foster Furcolo, a fellow Democrat — who wanted the seat for himself — to appoint JFK’s Harvard roommate Ben Smith of Gloucester as a seat warmer.

Smith held the seat for two years, until Ted Kennedy turned 30-years-old, thereby meeting the minimum age to be eligible to serve in the Senate.

That set up a classic confrontation between Ted Kennedy and Eddie McCormack 39, who was the nephew of then U.S. House Speaker John W. McCormack.

While JFK and Speaker McCormack stayed out of the battle, their surrogates did not. It was a clash of two Massachusetts political powers.

Ted Kennedy’s only prior job was as a token assistant district attorney in Suffolk County, McCormack, a strong civil rights advocate, had been president of the Boston City Council and was elected attorney general in 1958.

In addition, while Kennedy had been kicked out of Harvard for paying a fellow student to take a Spanish exam for him, McCormack was a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy.

But Kennedy far outranked McCormack when it came to family wealth, political power and privilege. One brother was president, the other was Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, this Joe Kennedy’s grandfather.

This led McCormack to explode at their lone debate when he charged that if Kennedy’s name were Edward Moore rather than Edward Moore Kennedy his candidacy “would be a joke.”

He was right, but it made no difference. Kennedy won easily, defeating McCormack by 559,303 to 247,403 votes, or 69.3 to 30.7 per cent.

Which brings us to Joe Kenney III, who wants to do to Eddie Markey what Uncle Ted did to Eddie McCormack.

The difference is that this Kennedy is not running for a vacant seat, but is seeking to defeat an incumbent who has refused to step aside for a Kennedy.

And Kennedy has yet to outline how he is any different from Markey, other than he is younger and a Kennedy. Both are progressives who hate President Trump and who vote the same way on all progressive issues.

Joe Kennedy has been teasing the public with a potential candidacy, without offering any criticism of Markey, his voting record, or why he would be better at the job than Markey, a guy who has been in Congress longer than Joe Kennedy has been alive.

The bottom line is that Joe Kennedy is a younger version of Eddie Markey, only richer and glamorous.

“I hear the folks who say I should wait my turn,” Kennedy said on Facebook. “I’m not sure this is a moment for waiting. Our system has been letting down a lot of people for a longtime, and we can’t fix it if we don’t challenge it.”

“Our government is not meeting its people’s needs,” he added in a subsequent email.

He is right. Our government is failing us. And Kennedy can help fix it.

How? Rather than becoming another blowhard senator, he can seek a real job. He can run for governor in 2022 and replace Republican Charlie Baker, who seems to have checked out.

Gov. Kennedy could reorganize the ailing MBTA which is an insult to the taxpaying public. He could fix the roads and bridges and break the traffic gridlock that threatens to shut down Greater Boston.

He could fix the outrageously incompetent Registry of Motor Vehicles, which, like the MBTA, is another patronage-ridden disaster.

He could reorganize the scandal ridden State Police and restore its reputation as the state’s most respected police agency.

As governor he really could do more for Massachusetts.

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