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Reply to doppelganglander in 8: Was it this Howie Carr column? Is this really how the Kennedy dynasty in Massachusetts ends? After a century of political treachery, chicanery and duplicity, not to mention scandal and depravity to the max, what was once called America’s First Family is going to be put out of business by … Ed Markey? Ed Markey? The guy who’s been an invisible man in Congress since Gerald Ford was president? A lightweight’s lightweight, a glad-handing political weathervane with a comb over who in 2017 congratulated “the Boston Patriots” and who seems to think the Twin Drive In is still open in Medford. Ed Markey, the Man That Time Forgot. It’s not just the polls that indicate that a political era is coming to an end Tuesday. You see the trend in social media, on the newspapers’ message boards, in the preponderance of Markey yard signs, even in JoJoJo Kennedy’s 4th Congressional District. It’s hard to keep a dynasty going, in any type of endeavor, and everything has to end at some point. But Ed Markey? Whose first vote in the Senate was “Present.” Who was elected to the House the first time with something like 21% of the vote, in a special-election primary. Can you imagine any of the real Kennedys ever rolling over for … Ed Markey? Once upon a time, if they’d been behind like this, the Kennedys would have just plain stolen the election. Everyone knows about the 1960 presidential election, but 100 years ago, a Congressman named Peter Tague crossed the original Joe Kennedy over some World War I issue. The patriarch put up his father-in-law, the ex-mayor Honey Fitz, and proceeded to engage in what may have been the most massive voter fraud in the history of Massachusetts. A year later, after an investigation, Honey Fitz was thrown out of Congress. What would the late Rep. Joseph Casey think? He was a Congressman in 1942 and the Kennedys didn’t want him getting elected to the U.S. Senate and blocking the boys’ way in the post-war era. The Kennedys hired priests to spread the scurrilous rumor that Casey’s wife had been pregnant when they married. Even JFK, the future president in the Pacific on PT-109, spread the rumor in his letters home, saying Casey had “put one in the oven.” Then they put Honey Fitz into the primary to drain off more votes from Casey. He lost. In the old days, the Kennedys would have also inserted a straw candidate into the race — somebody to drain off enough votes from Markey to put the callow ginger boy over the top. When JFK first ran for Congress in 1946, one of his primary opponents was a Boston city councilor named Joe Russo. Pretty soon another Joe Russo from Boston got on the ballot. He was a janitor from the West End. In the primary, Jack got 22,183 votes, way ahead of Joe Russo, who finished with 5,661 votes, and Joe Russo, who had 779 votes. Why didn’t the Kennedys put somebody into the fight named Markey? Wasn’t there a guy named John Markey in politics down in New Bedford? Mayor, judge, something like that. He’d be about 85 years old now. Perfect age for a straw! Where the hell are Kenny O’Donnell and Steve Smith when you really need them? Ed Markey even got the endorsement of the Kennedy family organ, the Boston Globe. Back in the day, in 1952, Jack needed his own newspaper endorsement, so his father Joe “loaned” a cool half-mil to the owner of the Boston Post, then the biggest newspaper in New England. The current generation of trust-funders couldn’t have bought a newspaper endorsement or two, or perhaps paid off a few “influencers?” Or at least had a clambake for the local Fourth Estate, like Uncle Teddy used to do every summer in Hyannis Port. And where was JoJoJo’s Hollywood glamour, the cheesecake, in this final Camelot campaign? His ancestors were, uh, seeing a lot of Gloria Swanson, Marilyn Monroe, Angie Dickinson, Darryl Hannah, etc., etc. JoJoJo’s only big-name female California endorsement came from … Nancy Pelosi, 80 years young. Do you think any of the brothers would have ever let Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez get away from them? In any way. Young JoJoJo seemed to be carrying a lot less baggage than his ancestors. Unlike both his grandfather and great uncle, he was never tossed out of a school for cheating. In the old days, the Kennedys would have just ordered Markey not to run for re-election. Back in ’60, after JFK won the presidency, Gov. Foster Furcolo wanted to appoint himself to the open Senate seat. The Kennedys summarily demanded that he appoint a placeholder, to keep the seat warm for Teddy, who hadn’t turned 30 yet. Furcolo complied. Two years later, when Teddy finally got his chance to take the family seat, his opponent was Eddie McCormack, the attorney general and himself a member of a (lesser) dynasty from South Boston. In their televised debate, McCormack pointed a finger at Edward Moore Kennedy and sneered, “If your name were Edward Moore, your candidacy would be a joke.” So true. The Kennedy candidacy was a joke. And now, after all these years, it appears the voters of Massachusetts have finally gotten the joke.
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Kosh's Shadow
8/23/2020 3:15:35 PM
Occasional Reader
8/28/2020 5:41:03 PM