Scott Brown’s announcement that he’s not running for Senate has everything to do with Democratic Representative Edward Markey. As recently as December, there was a feared calamity among Democrats should John Kerry vacate his Senate seat for a potential secretary of state appointment. An untidy primary for the special election and the prospect of resurrecting Brown was almost too much to bear.
Two things have changed — both related to Markey. With uncharacteristic cohesiveness for Democrats, the national party, Vicki Kennedy, and Kerry himself circled around Markey as the candidate to succeed Kerry. In addition, Brown no longer seems dominant now that he’d face a capable consensus candidate — probably Markey.
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adam, this is Mass, people vote for liberals regardless of their history. This state just re-elected john tierney, whos' wife was involved in an illegal gambling ring with her brothers. Markey is pretty useless but will still get elected because he has a D next to his name, all that matters here. Eliazbeth warren claimed to be a minority to get a job at Harvard, she said her parents eloped, not true, she did not sign up as a minority status in the senate, because she can't prove it. but none of that matters, she has a D next to her name.
This is Mass. We vote for candidates, not candidates' spouses.
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Scott Brown is now well-situated to take a high paying job either lobbying his former colleagues, none of whom seem to feel he is less than a "nice guy" type, easy to know and talk with, or a media gig, or any of a variety settings that will bring he and his family resources and influence beyond any he knew even as a senator. Almost anything that he does will lead to this. Why should he put himself and his family through the ringer again when, if he won, he would be right back where he was when entered the senate the first time.
He doesn't have to be an intellectual and Harvard professor (or senior senator from Massachusetts, for that matter) to figure out that a run against Ed Markey is not worth it to him and his family.
This letter confirmed two concerns that I had during the recent election. First, Massachusetts is a NAME state. It’s either Democrat or it doesn’t count. Second, That while Brown might vote for what is proper, Warren can always be counted on the vote Democrat. I’m an Independent voter, yet I’m made to feel like an illegal.
"...made to feel like an illegal?" How does that work, exactly, when your fellow-citizens vote for their candidates of choice?
kate, Warren got in with the welfare vote, check the inner cities, especially Lynn.
Ah, Massachusetts. The land that elects Kennedys, regardless of merit, and preaches academic freedom and the competative marketplace of ideas while all the while practicing a stultifying liberal indoctrination. Had the Democrat Party ushered in a Golden Age of Pericles, there might be justification for this rush to coronate a careerist pol like Markey with absolutely no record of accomplishment other than the synthetic one that will be confected for him by his handlers for this campaign. No, Alice, to get our country out of the mess we are in will require thinking vastly superior to that which got us into it, of a kind unlikely to originate from the mind of such as Markey. Who can live among such lemmings?