Bad Form to Hit a Guy When He's Down, but Somebody's Got to Do It

A great deal has been spoken and written about Kennedy's loss to Markey in the Democratic primary election for U.S. Senator this past Monday.  

The best, most succinct post-mortem I've read was in Politico, "Why Joe Kennedy's Senate campaign flopped": 

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/02/joe-kennedy-senate-campaign-failed-408033

I could not improve upon that.  But there are three brief comments I'd like to add:

One, Kennedy was not bold enough out of the gate. He seemed a bit sheepish, almost apologetic, about challenging the 44-year incumbent.  Result: The chance to make a strong and/or dramatic introduction of his candidacy was squandered.

Two, Kennedy's campaign photography never exploited his intrinsic physical/theatrical advantages, i.e., his youthful good looks and young person's energy/vitality.  Where were the billboards with the gigantic, side-by-side pictures of in-his-prime Joe next to ready-for-Medicare Eddie?  Scott Brown, who helped earn his way through college as a model, would not have made such a mistake.

Three, Kennedy missed badly when he fired at Markey in the second half of August for supposedly questioning his family legacy and "weaponizing" his family name in the video ad that went viral, "The Green New Dealmaker."   The ad was not the cheap shot Kennedy claimed it was.  Voters get that politics is a rough business.  They're stingy with sympathy when a politician gets banged up, especially when that politician has benefited from inherited wealth and privilege.

On the upside, I don't think all the talk about Joe being the first Kennedy to lose an election in Massachusetts has to mean anything in the end.  Plenty of successful high elective office-holders have come back from painful defeats to win the next election.  Think Charlie Baker, long the nation's most popular governor, who got spanked by Deval Patrick in 2010.

Defeat can be the best teacher if faced head-on, dispassionately. 

Joe Kennedy is a smart, selfless, experienced public servant, a person of impeccable character and integrity.  Idealism burns incandescently within him.  I hope it will not be long before his name appears again on a statewide ballot.

Footnote, re: Hometown Knockdown:   Alex Morse, now serving his fourth consecutive term as mayor of Holyoke, came up short Sept. 1 in his own backyard.  Holyoke voters favored incumbent Richie Neal in the Dem primary for U.S. representative in the First Massachusetts District by a 426-vote margin: Neal received 4,366 votes in Holyoke to Morse's 3,940.