Another Dynasty Bites the Dust

This past Tuesday, U.S. Representative Joseph P. Kennedy III, Democrat of Massachusetts, lost his bid for a U.S. Senate seat in the Bay State to incumbent Democratic Senator Edward Markey in the state's Democratic Senate primary.  His defeat - the first Kennedy defeat in Massachusetts after 26 Kennedy election victories spanning nearly 75 years - has all but ended the lifespan of the greatest political dynasty of the past sixty years. 

Kennedy, who turns 40 in October, sought to get himself a Senate seat largely on the basis of his youth and his pedigree.  But the grandson of Robert Kennedy found out the hard way neither of those things are enough in a Democratic Party less enamored by either - especially in Massachusetts, a state so liberal it makes Democrats in other so-called blue states look like Reaganites.  Markey, 74, is more staunchly progressive than Kennedy, supports Medicare for all, signed on to the Green New Deal, and, like his fellow New Englander Bernie Sanders, has demonstrated that progressives care less about new blood than about old ideas with new life. 

In fact, I would argue that Kennedy's pedigree, like Hillary Clinton's, offended more progressives than it inspired.  Bear in mind that Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who collaborated with Markey - who has been in Washington longer than either Kennedy or Ocasio-Cortez has been alive - backed Markey in the Massachusetts Senate race, as did the Bay State's other Democratic U.S. Senator, Elizabeth Warren. I can imagine that AOC, who was working as a bartender just a few years ago, and Warren, the daughter of department store clerks, thought that JPK 3 had a lot damn gall to run or a U.S. Senate seat he seemed to feel entitled to just because of his name.  Because Kennedy, a conventional liberal who prefers not to rock the boat with big ideas, had nothing to offer progressives who knew Markey and trusted him.  I'll come right out and say it; AOC and Liz must think he's a real jerk.  I even know of one progressive who referred to Kennedy as "a putz."  "Putz" is, I believe, Yiddish for a word in the English language that you can't use on American broadcast television.

The funny thing is that Markey was once dismissed as a Kennedy manqué, someone who wanted to emulate the Kennedy mystique.

Joseph Kennedy III made a foolish decision to give up his House seat on what turned out to be a quixotic gamble for a more prestigious Senate seat.  As for his political future, he doesn't have much of one.  He could run for governor against Republican incumbent Charlie Baker - who will be able to go for a third term and probably will - in 2022, but Baker is actually quite popular in the Bay State for a Republican.  Elizabeth Warren's Senate seat, up again in 2024, is also out of the question, as Warren will be 75 in 2024 - one year older than Markey is now - and will likely run again.  2026, when Markey is up again and turns 80?  Hah!  I wish I had a nickel for every U.S. Senator who stayed in office past four score years.  Best for JPK 3 to hope for junior Cabinet position in a potential Biden administration.  

It appears that the storied Kennedy political dynasty is no more, an inevitability in the growing disdain for powerful political families.  That's why Barack Obama, and not Hillary Clinton, was elected President in 2008; after two Bushes and a Clinton, no one wanted to keep the Presidency going back and forth between two families.  That didn't stop the Washington elites from trying to engineer a Bush-Clinton matchup in 2016 between Jeb and Hillary, only to cause voters to rebel and give us Donald J. Trump . . . who is now trying to make plans for his family to hold on to the White House for the next several decades.

Not going to happen. Everyone's sick of dynasties in These States.  And several of our greatest political families have already fallen by the wayside.  No one talks about the political relevance of the Adamses, the Harrisons, or the Roosevelts anymore, and in New Jersey, the Frelinghuysens finally gave up the ghost with Rodney Frelinghuysen's retirement from the House.  

The Kennedy story isn't over just yet, though.  Amy Kennedy, the wife of former Rhode Island congressman Patrick Kennedy (Ted's son), is the Democratic candidate for the House in New Jersey's Second House Distinct.  She may yet win.  But, of course, she's only a Kennedy by marriage.