Democratic voters in Massachusetts have some bad choices to make on Tuesday, including one in a Senate election.
They can pick either six more years of incumbent Sen. Ed Markey or unseat him by picking Rep. Joe Kennedy III. In a deep-blue state such as Massachusetts, neither of the Republicans running have a shot in the general election.
Odds are, right-wingers won’t vote in the primary election because both candidates are two of the most left-wing members of Congress. They basically agree on every issue. For them, that includes supporting “Medicare for all” and the Green New Deal without offering any way to pay for those incredibly expensive programs. They’re also left-wing on social issues. They want taxpayers to fund late-term abortions. They’re for giving amnesty to illegal immigrants. And they support affirmative action programs.
At this point, their policies are nearly identical to people who identify as socialists, such as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. And yet, one of them is going to represent Massachusetts in the Senate in 2021. Republicans should hope that man is Markey.
That’s not an endorsement of Markey’s twisted and dishonest worldview in which taxing a few billionaires pays for a $52 trillion “Medicare for all” program, nor is it to say anyone should support him this upcoming November. However, if it’s either him or Kennedy, Markey is the less bad option.
Markey is 74 years old. That means in six years, he will be 80. If he fends off a tough primary challenge this time around, what are the odds he runs for another term in 2026? Probably quite low. If Kennedy wins, however, he will only be 40 next year. Kennedy doesn’t believe in term limits, either. That means Kennedy could become the next Ted Kennedy and hold the seat for more than 40 years. Republicans don’t beat incumbents in Massachusetts. They rarely win at all. Maybe Kennedy would have an unsuccessful run for president in a year, he’d be up for reelection in the Senate, or maybe he’d resign to join a Democrat’s presidential administration, but those are no guarantees.
If Markey wins and doesn’t seek reelection, maybe someone who isn’t as far to the left ends up in the Senate as a result. There could be a crowded primary field loaded with liberal Democrats that gives a more normal Democrat an opportunity to win with a plurality of the vote. Or maybe in six years, things will look bad for Democrats and the Massachusetts Republican Party will run a serious candidate with innovative solutions that appeal to some traditional Democratic voters. The latter, unfortunately, appears highly unlikely; it’s more likely that their candidates will refrain from discussing issues and run on nothing.
Additionally, a loss for Kennedy is a setback in his career. Maybe he’d get a spot in a Joe Biden administration if President Trump loses this November, but that’s no guarantee. That’s not to say his career is over if he loses, but maybe it makes it harder for him to run for president one day or he proposes fewer crazy ideas in the Senate because it takes him longer to get there.
It’s a bad scenario for Massachusetts, but this is the system we live under. Markey has been in Congress since 1976 and hasn’t turned America into the Soviet Union yet, so he probably won’t in the next six years either.
Tom Joyce (@TomJoyceSports) is a freelance writer who has been published with USA Today, the Boston Globe, Newsday, ESPN, the Detroit Free Press, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Federalist, and a number of other media outlets.
