The front page headline with which the Gazette “welcome(d)” Joe Kennedy III’s Senate bid (“Kennedy gets warm welcome amid Senate bid”) neglects to point out that the event it covered was a gathering of 30 handpicked active Democrats in a living room. Though that information does show up in the article.
As one of those who was called with an invitation and was cold to the prospect, I can tell you there are a number of us too disappointed in his bid to agree to attend.
I’m sure Joe III is a very nice young man, and from a good family (politically speaking). But as the article continues, his politics hardly differ from those of the respectable Sen. Ed Markey, who he wants to replace.
The article does provide us with Joe’s major argument for his cause — he’s younger than Markey. And it goes on to polish his major credentials by pointing out that he’s the grandson of a highly admired Massachusetts politician. He’s got dynastic nostalgia as well as age on his side.
The article also points out that Joe III doesn’t like President Trump, and more important, he signed onto Markey’s Green New Deal legislation “on day one.” So he does know what leadership means.
Maybe it is my age that has disturbed me about this young man’s attempt to use his family name and his lack of any disqualifying scandal to unseat a genuinely successful progressive senator from the really good job that he is doing. But I think it is Joe III’s lack of anything besides his last name and his feelings of entitlement to recommend him.
Gary Michael Tartakov
Amherst