By Dan Kennedy • The press, politics, technology, culture and other passions
Andy Card decides not to run for governor senator. Although I find myself agreeing with Howie Carr — it would be better for the future of the Republican Party if Scott Brown can use the Senate race to build his name recognition.
Ed Markey’s not running, either. No surprise there — he’s got too much seniority in the House.
Not that Gov. Deval Patrick is looking to Media Nation for advice. But if there’s one way to break the impasse over an interim senator to replace the late Ted Kennedy until the Jan. 19 special election, it’s this: Patrick should announce his choice now.
It seems pretty clear that the state Legislature in 2004 did the right thing in taking away the governor’s right to name a successor and the wrong thing in not allowing for an interim. Once you get past the partisan squabbling over who’s the bigger hypocrite, the only real issue is whether Patrick might appoint someone who’d then have a leg up in the special election.
Kennedy, in his letter to Patrick, released shortly before his death, asked that the interim be someone who would promise not to run. Patrick has said that would be his goal. All that’s missing is a name. As I and others have said, former governor Michael Dukakis would be a fine choice, but I’m sure he’s not the only possibility.
With the health-care debate reaching a critical moment in Washington, Massachusetts deserves to have full representation.
In my latest for the Guardian, I round up pundit commentary following President Obama’s big speech on health-care reform — and consider whether he succeeded in charting a middle course between liberals and centrists, while marginalizing conservatives as unregenerate (“You lie!”) obstructionists.
The Massachusetts Republican Party may be at a disastrously low ebb. But, contrary to expectations, it looks as though it’s going to field the equivalent of its A-team in both the special election to succeed the late Sen. Ted Kennedy and in next year’s governor’s race.
Former state representative Andy Card, who was chief of staff to George W. Bush and a top aide in George H.W. Bush’s administration, has all but announced for the Senate seat, according to the Boston Herald.
Granted, Card was far better known several decades ago, when the Republicans regularly hoped he would toss his hat into the ring, and were invariably disappointed. Then, too, Card will have to answer for his tenure in the second Bush White House — especially his oft-cited 2002 pronouncement that the administration would not start pushing for war in Iraq until September because “from a marketing point of view, you don’t introduce new products in August.”
But the chances of a Republican succeeding Kennedy would appear to be non-existent in any case. Card’s presence on the ballot will help with party-building simply because he’s serious and credible.
Since Card knows he’s unlikely to win, the interesting question is: What does he want? And that’s where the Republicans’ other credible candidate, Charlie Baker, comes in. Baker, who was then-governor Bill Weld’s top aide in the early ’90s, is now running for governor himself.
Unlike the Senate, the governor’s office is a position that a Republican can reasonably hope to win, as Weld, Paul Cellucci and Mitt Romney proved. With Gov. Deval Patrick’s poll numbers down, Baker would appear to have a decent shot, assuming he can get by his primary opponent, Christy Mihos.
But is it possible that Card is looking past the Senate race in hopes of running for governor himself?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGqikIrNKw4&w=425&h=344]
Joel Brown calls a television commercial put out by Boston Mayor Tom Menino’s re-election campaign, featuring his empty desk, “a terrible spot” and — with a bit of rewriting — “an excellent ad for one of his opponents.”
Adam Gaffin adds: “Maybe this is what happened to Curley’s desk.”
In my latest for the Guardian, I take a look at the fall of Van Jones — and at how a far-right Web site and Glenn Beck, improbably enough, took him down with a clean hit.
Conservative pundit Byron York has written a piece for the Washington Examiner reminding us that Democrats protested when President George H.W. Bush delivered a televised address to schoolchildren in 1991.
As described by York (and a contemporaneous New York Times account backs him up), the Democrats’ protest was deeply stupid. But, as York notes, the protests came after Bush’s speech, and were about money, not motives.
If York wants us to believe there’s any moral equivalence between what the Democrats said 18 years ago and Republican protests that President Obama would indoctrinate impressionable minds with socialist ideas, well, he’s going to have to do better than that.
State Attorney General Martha Coakley is in a commanding position to succeed the late Sen. Ted Kennedy now that former congressman Joe Kennedy has announced he won’t run.
I doubt many people are surprised by Kennedy’s decision. Last week, WBZ-TV (Channel 4) political analyst Jon Keller and Boston Globe columnist Scot Lehigh both gave Kennedy a taste of what he could expect from the sensible center had he chosen to jump in. Needless to say, conservative talk radio would have savaged him.
Who would want to bet against Coakley? Not me. While several congressmen ponder whether they should give it a try, Coakley is already off and running. She’s won statewide, and the times would suggest that voters may be looking for something a little different. As a woman and as someone who’s not part of the Capitol Hill gang, Coakley can position herself as an outsider.
As for the Republicans, so far the party has been unable find someone willing to be a human sacrifice. Former lieutenant governor Kerry Healey, who at least would have been well-funded, has decided against running.
Call this a gut sense rather than a prediction, but barring a major unexpected development — like Victoria Reggie Kennedy getting in — this race may be over before it even begins.
Photo (cc) by weinbergagain and republished here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.
Anthony Schinella has an interesting piece in the Belmont Citizen-Herald examining claims by U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch and former Hatch aide Jared Whitley that the late Ted Kennedy was somehow responsible for ensuring that a sculpture of the Angel Moroni could be built on top of the Mormon temple in Belmont despite local opposition.
But as Schinella notes, it’s hard to see what Kennedy could have done, unless he somehow interceded with the state’s Supreme Judicial Court. It’s a worthy addition to the Kennedy mythology, but unproven as yet.
The public-relations office at Northeastern just sent out a Q&A it conducted with Michael Dukakis on the life and legacy of Ted Kennedy. Dukakis, a Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Northeastern, is a former governor of Massachusetts and a former presidential candidate, and has been mentioned as a possible interim senator. It’s a pretty interesting interview, and I’m presenting it here in full.
Q: How would you sum up Ted Kennedy as a politician?
A: He was the whole package for me, a remarkable combination of personal commitment and passion for the job, and skills, legislative ability. He never would start a policy initiative without getting a Republican cosponsor.
You know, after Bill Clinton went down to defeat on his 1993 health care plan, he and Ted got together to see what could be done, and decided, OK we’ll start with the kids, so they came up with this children’s health plan. And Kennedy, as you might guess, was the principal cosponsor in the Senate.
[Republican Senate Majority Leader] Trent Lott knew that Kennedy was looking for a Republican cosponsor. Kennedy had this long-standing personal friendship with [Utah Republican] Orrin Hatch, and when Lott found out that Hatch had agreed to cosponsor the bill, he was just furious. But they put it through-raised the federal cigarette tax from 24 cents to 67 cents and put it through. That was Kennedy.
Q: Do you remember the first time you worked with him politically?
A: I’m sure we probably did some things together in the Sixties. But people ask me, “What are your favorite Kennedy stories?” and I’ve got two.
I was first elected governor in ’74, I was defeated by Ed King in ’78, so there was the great rematch in 1982, in the Democratic primary. King was the incumbent Democratic governor, albeit a conservative one; he later switched parties. Still, there was no reason for Teddy to come out 10 days before that election and endorse my candidacy, but he did.
Q: Did you ever ask him about it?
A: He just thought it was the right thing to do, very similar to when he endorsed Obama in 2008. He was close to the Clintons, and I know they were very hurt and disappointed, but he did it anyway. And I know his endorsement was just as crucial for Obama then as it was for me in 1982.
My other favorite memory came about when I signed the universal health care bill in 1988. I’ll never forget when Teddy called me, he was just so proud-of me, of Secretary of Health and Human Services Phil Johnston, of the state. He was incredibly proud that his state was the first in the nation to enact universal health care.
Q: You served as governor for 12 years while Ted was in the Senate, so the two of you must have worked together a lot. Does anything in particular come to mind?
A: On public transportation, which I’m slightly obsessive about, he was absolutely terrific. This was in my first term, and at the time, you could not bust the highway trust fund, the gasoline tax, you could not use it for public transportation.
I was one of the leaders to fight the so-called Master Highway Plan, which would have … created a California-style freeway system, eight lanes of elevated highway going right through Frederick Law Olmsted’s Emerald Necklace, down Ruggles Street and three feet from the Museum of Fine Arts.
And meanwhile, the “T” was just a basket case, it was awful, it would break down three days out of five when I took it to work.
So after a 10-year debate, we had killed the Master Highway Plan, and we had given up hundreds of million of dollars in federal highway money, but we thought, why can’t we use that for public transportation?
And Ted and [former House Speaker Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill Jr.] were largely responsible for making it possible for Massachusetts to become the first state in the nation to be able to use federal highway money for public transportation.
We ended up with $3 billion to invest in the “T.” We acquired the entire commuter rail system in eastern Massachusetts for $35 million, stations, parking lots, tracks, … and we could not have done it without Kennedy and Tip’s leadership.
Q: What will Ted Kennedy’s legacy be — what do you think he’ll stand out for above all?
A: In a general way, that he was somebody who knew where he stood, and he lived it, practiced it, did it. He had a very strong philosophy, which at times was not in vogue. And yet he never wavered at all. I think subsequent events demonstrated clearly that his values and his approach to public service made a lot more sense than some of the folks who were critical of him.
The one piece he wasn’t able to achieve was his goal of health care for everyone, and I hope we’re going to do that.
Q: You see people at [health care] rallies holding signs, saying “Do It 4 Teddy.” How do you think his passing will change the health care debate?
A: No question we’d be on our way to a health care bill if Ted Kennedy had been healthy, engaged, and involved. If, for example, there had to be some compromising on a pure public option, because it was Kennedy, the liberal community would accept it because his credentials there were so strong.
I’m not saying we can’t get a health care bill, but there is no one with the unique set of skills and the respect that he had.
My own view is that the Democrats will have 60 votes for cloture, assuming Massachusetts changes the law and gets someone down there to vote. So what the Democrats have to do-not that you don’t keep reaching out to Republicans-is to put together a bill that has solid Democratic support, and then you use the 60 votes to close out debate.
But there is going to be some very hard work to do among Senate Democrats. Kennedy certainly would have been the glue to hold them together and get this thing passed. Now, other people will have to step up to try to do it.
