Kirk Will Work

With the path in Massachusetts cleared for an interim U.S. Senator to be allowed to serve in the late Edward Kennedy's seat until a special election is held in January, Governor Deval Patrick chose Paul Kirk, a close Kennedy friend, for the post. Kirk is a respected party elder and a former Democratic National Committee chairman, serving from 1985 to 1989.

Speculation has begun on who might run in the special election, with the most obvious Democratic candidates - Joseph Kennedy II, Edward Markey, and Martin Meehan - having ruled themselves out. Also subject to speculation is Governor Patrick's decision to pass over Michael Dukakis, the last Democratic governor of Massachusetts before Patrick, as a possible appointee for the interim Senate appointment.

Dukakis was a public servant in the truest sense of the term, having gotten into politics to improve government and and make it work for ordinary people, and he accomplished much in his own governorship, but he still, twenty years and change after his bid for the Presidency, remains a punch line for his emotionless, charismatically challenged persona. Not to mention the fact that his impressive economic record - the Massachusetts Miracle - went up in smoke in the final two years of his governorship.

Serving out part of Ted Kennedy's term would have been a wonderful and honorable way for Dukakis to cap his political career, but it looks like he'll be remembered as fondly as he was at the end of his last job - which means, not fondly at all, if even remembered.

I may have reported this before, but Dukakis recently accepted the blame for George Walker Bush. If he had defeated the father in 1988, he reasoned, no one would have heard of the son.