September 5, 2020: Achieving the Unthinkable, Empty Shirt, The Future Won

Joe Kennedy III has lost. For the first time a Kennedy has lost in a Massachusetts Democratic primary.  He not only lost the election, but was crushed in a landslide, 56-44 per cent.  

The grandson of Robert F. Kennedy went about achieving the unthinkable, losing a contest that, earlier in the year, and leading in the polls by up to 17 points, looked like a cake-walk.  Indeed, many treated the Senator, who had labored over two decades in the House of Representatives, as a mere place-holder--someone to keep the seat warm until the young Kennedy decided to reclaim it.  It wasn't to be.  Not this time; not with this Senator. 

In his 'concession' speech, if one can call it that, the young congressman said that he was surprised that his 'name' dominated the contest. Really? For what other reason could there be for his upstart challenge to a sitting Senator from his own party?

Surely, it wasn't over the issues, for he and Senator Markey differ on very little—except, of course, the Senator is much more bold and progressive than his upstart challenger.

It is a bit ironic to run on the Kennedy name while presenting oneself as a pale imitation of the man you want to replace; for Markey had embraced The Green New Deal, as well as Elizabeth Warren's Wall Street reforms.  Indeed, he proved himself to be a pale imitation of his forebears; his grandfather, referencing Tennyson, once implored us To Seek A Newer World, this Kennedy, on the other hand, spoke of tired, old, solutions. 

 Kennedy, running to the 'right' of Markey, was much more circumscribed, revealing himself to basically be an 'empty shirt' proving, once again, the maxim that succeeding generations revert to the mean.

Of course, the Democratic establishment, principally House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, drawn by the magic of all things Kennedy, endorsed him. But the future, represented by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the up-and-coming New York Congresswoman who had authored, along with Markey, the Green New Deal said otherwise. The future won.

In one of Kennedy's Facebook postings I commented that he needs to drop the Roman numerals after his name, for it reeks of pomposity and privilege. In any case if one is to run on the legacy of youth, energy and all things Kennedy, one would expect an agenda of bold new ideas; one would expect a vision more about the future than the past. In old man Markey, the future won.