Jules Crittenden
 . . . until Deval Patrick was elected last year, we had Republican governors for 16 years. GOP lost its last U.S. House seat over a decade ago though, and numbers that gave them a little clout in the state Senate under the first Weld admin have dwindled to meaningless nothingness. In JFKÂ’s day, it was a heavily Republican state, and despite the subsequent shift, lunchpail Dems voted for Reagan. A third to half the state consistently still votes Republican in statewide and national elections, but shows little interest in running. Kennedy benefits greatly from (A) Camelot legacy, (B) incumbency, (C) money and (D) generally low-caliber opponents, his toughest challenge in living memory being Romney in the mid-1990s. My own conservative newspaper has endorsed him as recently as a couple of years ago, a somewhat Murdochian recognition of his unquestionable power in Washington, when his opponentÂ’s campaign barely registered a blip. I think the mindless cheers you saw during his absurdly vapid and revisionist Obama endorsement speech yesterday tell the whole story. The uninspired younger brother of JFK and RFK, delivered a hand-me-down U.S. Senate seat four decades ago, was the last man standing and took on the Kennedy mantle, itself an odd anomaly of American 20th Century politics, utter cynicism blooded into legend. A scandal Â… driving off a bridge, abandoning a young woman to drown, taking a powder while figuring out what to do about that Â… that would have run out mere mortals a long time ago rarely even rates a mention any more except by meanspirited partisans who cruelly question how such a man could possibly claim to represent the interests of common people. |