You're Joe Kennedy, and there are only three ways this whole Senate thing can work out for you.No. 1, you run and "win" a life sentence to the Senate, and a decade from now, you'll look in the mirror and see ... Chris Dodd.
No. 2, you run and you lose, as unlikely as that now seems, and that's the end of the Kennedy dynasty, once and for all, and it's your fault.
No. 3, you give the race a good leaving-alone. You keep collecting that $544,792 salary from your energy companies and never have to worry about getting a call from some newspaper wiseguy about what have you done lately for Pam Kelley, the girl who wound up in a wheelchair for life thanks to your crappy driving on Nantucket in 1973.
You're Joe Kennedy, and it's a pretty easy decision, isn't it, except that ... you're a Kennedy.
What would Hugo Chavez do?
If you stay out, you can work behind the scenes for Mike Capuano, the congressman from Somerville. You want Capuano because if he's elected, that sets off another special election next spring for his House seat, the one you and your uncle JFK both held, which means it really belongs to the Kennedys, just like Ted's Senate seat.
An open Boston-Cambridge House seat would be made to order for Little Joe Kennedy, your 28-year-old son who graduated from Harvard Law School, which is a lot more impressive than your own Mumbles Menino-esque "life-experience" degree from UMass-Boston.
You're Joe Kennedy, and boy are you and everybody else in the family put out about this Martha Coakley broad, disrespecting Uncle Ted by making it clear for months that she's running, and then being the first one to pull papers last week.
Hey, Martha Coakley, don't you know who I am? Don't you know who we are?
And the worst thing she did was put out the word that she didn't care if the widow Vicki ran, she'd stay in the fight. You're Joe Kennedy, and you'd use the phrase lese majeste, if only you had a clue what it meant.
Tomorrow is Labor Day, and you know that Coakley will have the Park Plaza surrounded with her sign-holders for the big Labor Day breakfast, and boy, does that kind of corny political stunt make your eyes glaze over these days.
You're Joe Kennedy, and another thing you could do without this fall is Steve Lynch coming at you like he lunged for those Iranians on City Hall Plaza back in 1980. How dare Lynch run - he's publicly expressed qualms about Obamacare, and he was the only congressman who refused to sign the letter demanding a bailout for all the obsequious Kennedy rumpswabs at the Globe.
Why, he's practically a Republican.
And Lynch'll have all those other hotheads in his district with him, hoping to get him out of the way so they can run for his seat - Multiple Choice Joyce, Jackie Hart (D-Bunker Hill Day). And they called you a lightweight?
Same thing with all the state reps. Unless they're in Capuano or Lynch's districts, they'll all be pushing for Coakley, because if she's gone, the Legislature gets to fill that vacancy, which could mean, oh, how does Attorney General Robert DeLeo sound? Another Speaker's fight, for the right to get indicted by your predecessor.