Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy's letter to Gov. Deval Patrick requesting that state law be changed so that if he steps aside in the near future an interim senator would be appointed in his place set off a new round of speculation about the future of the legendary Senate seat.
Kennedy's proposal would amend a 2004 state law that calls for a special election to fill a Senate vacancy at least 145 days after the seat comes open, allowing the governor to appoint an interim replacement so that the state is not lacking a vote in the Senate in the period leading up to the special election. (The law was initially written to keep then Gov. Mitt Romney from appointing a Republican replacement if Sen. John Kerry was elected president.)
The fate of such a proposal is difficult to judge.
On the one hand, Massachusetts strategists with whom the Fix spoke on Thursday suggested that the state legislature isn't particularly keen on the idea of changing the law. A joint statement from state House Speaker Robert DeLeo and state Senate President Therese Murray was decidedly non-committal on the proposal. "We have great respect for the senator and what he continues to do for our commonwealth and our nation," wrote the duo. "It is our hope that he will continue to be a voice for the people of Massachusetts as long as he is able."
It would also be difficult for Patrick to secure a rock-solid commitment from the appointee that he or she would not run in the subsequent special election, as Kennedy calls for in his letter.
Another factor to consider is Patrick's own precarious political position. Deeply unpopular in the state, Patrick faces a serious reelection fight in 2010 from state Treasurer Tim Cahill (I) and others, and might be tempted to use the appointment power to benefit his own political standing.
"You'll be looking for people who advance Governor Patrick's politics and the politics of the leadership in the state legislature who are all right now suffering with abysmal poll ratings, and they need to make this a win for them rather than an example of insider deals," said one senior Massachusetts Democratic strategist.
On the other, Kennedy -- and the political legacy he represents -- still retains significant symbolic and literal power in the Bay State. And, as Kennedy battles terminal brain cancer, it is hard to judge how much impact his condition and the legend he has created in the state will have on the debate over his proposed change in law. (Kennedy's health makes any discussion of succession difficult but his willingness to wade into the debate suggests that others in the state are positioning for the opening as well.)
If the Kennedy amendment is passed and state law changed, one name that might be appealing, according to a well-connected Democratic strategist with ties to Massachusetts, is former governor Michael Dukakis, the Democratic party's 1988 presidential nominee, or former labor secretary Robert Reich.
In the event of a special election, the field would be significantly more crowded as many people have eyed Kennedy's seat for decades and, because it would be midterm for all Massachusetts elected officials, they would not have to give up their seats.
The six most commonly mentioned candidates are former representative Joe Kennedy, Reps. Ed Markey, Steve Lynch and Mike Capuano, UMass.-Lowell Chancellor Marty Meehan and state Attorney General Martha Coakley.
Joseph Kennedy, the son of Robert F. Kennedy and a former member of Congress, would almost certainly have the right of first refusal since the seat has been in his family almost without a break (Sen. Ben Smith, a Kennedy loyalist, held the seat from 1960 to 1962 until Ted Kennedy was old enough to be elected to the Senate officially) from 1950 1952 when his uncle John F. Kennedy won it. (Ted Kennedy's wife, Vicki, would almost certainly take the seat without opposition but is apparently uninterested.)
Joe Kennedy has seemed uninterested in politics since he retired from the House in 1998, however, and made clear five years ago he would not run for Kerry's seat if the Bay State senator was elected to the White House.
Both Markey and Meehan have been positioning for years for Senate bids and were all-in if Kerry had won in 2004.
Meehan left Congress in 2007 after 15 years in the institution but is sitting on $4.8 million in his House account that could serve as significant seed money for a Senate bid.
Markey, who currently sits as the third ranking member on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has also been squirreling away cash for a statewide bid for years; he ended June with $2.9 million in the bank. Markey chairs a subcommittee in the House, however, and may not want to step aside from that perch -- even temporarily -- to run for Senate.
Lynch and Capuano are newer to the House but each is ambitious and, in a crowded primary field, have the sort of geographic/ideological bases that could serve them well. Lynch represents south Boston and has very strong ties to organized labor while Capuano holds down the Cambridge/Somerville area that is home to a large chunk of votes in a Democratic primary.
Coakley, who was elected as the state's first female attorney general in 2006, has been putting the pieces together behind the scenes for a special election candidacy for quite some time -- including conducting polling to test her viability. Some regard her as the favorite while others say her semi-open campaigning for the seat is unseemly and hasn't sat well with Democratic party regulars.
Friday's Fix Picks:
1. Pelosi: No public option, no passage.
2. President Obama, Michael Smerconish and health care.
3. Paterson loses a legal battle on LG appointment.
4. Alexi Giannoulias gets more establishment support in Illinois.
5. Print paper > the web?
Deeds To Frame Race As Warner/Kaine vs. Bush: Amidst polling that shows he has fallen behind former state attorney general Bob McDonnell (R), state Sen. Creigh Deeds (D) will deliver a speech today in Fairfax aimed at re-framing the Virginia governor's race. "He's going to talk about the choice Virginians face between moving forward or going backwards," said a Deeds adviser. The source added that Deeds will cast the race as a choice between the policies put in place by popular Democratic Govs. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine and those of former president George W. Bush. "McDonnell will bring back Bush economic policies to Virginia, and he'll take us backwards with his single-minded focus on a divisive social agenda," said the Deeds adviser. Deeds' decision to give what his campaign is billing as a major address -- and to begin his general election advertising with a commercial launching statewide today -- amounts to an acknowledgment that McDonnell has gained the upper hand over the summer months and that something in the race needs to change -- and change quickly -- for Deeds to reclaim momentum.
DNC Posts Best Money Month of '09: The Democratic National Committee collected $9.3 million in July, its best fundraising month in 2009. The DNC spent $6 million and ended the month with $16 million on hand and $5.1 million in debt. "We have a plan and its funding our operations to support the president's agenda including passing health insurance reform and to do what we need to support our political operations, state parties and campaigns," said DNC communications director Brad Woodhouse. Meanwhile, the Republican National Committee reported raising $6.26 million in July while spending $8 million -- a major chunk of which went to RNC efforts in the gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia. The RNC ended last month with $21.8 million in the bank, down from the $23.6 million it showed at the end of June. Gail Gitcho, a spokeswoman for the RNC, said the committee's August fundraising was picking up considerably with an average of 2,000 new donors coming on board each day over the first two weeks of this month.
Death Panel Meme Going Strong: A new Pew poll shows that nearly half of all self-identified Republicans believe that President Obama's health care plan would establish so-called "death panels" (thank you Governor Palin) that would make decisions about end of life care. Forty-seven percent of Republicans and 45 percent of regular watchers of Fox News Channel believe that claim to be true -- although independent fact checkers have said it is not. As we wrote yesterday, part of the Obama administration's problem in the selling of this health care plan is their inability -- to date -- to effectively combat or rise above the misinformation campaign being run by opponents to the bill. The Pew numbers paint that challenge in stark relief.
Must Watch TV: Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) spends the hour (or most of it) with George Stephanopoulos on "This Week" on Sunday. McCain has laid low over the last few months as the debate over health care has raged. He's made clear he would like to play a bigger part in the negotiations but, to date, has been on the outside looking in. How hard a line against the plan does McCain take? Does he leave any wiggle room in hopes of emerging as the broker of a grand compromise?
Grayson Hires Hodson: Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson (R) has named Bluegrass State operative Nate Hodson as the manager of his 2010 Senate campaign. Hodson was serving as communications director for Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) after spending the 2008 election cycle as finance director for Sen. Mitch McConnell's re-election race. McConnell raised more than $17 million for that contest, which he won over Democrat Bruce Lunsford. Grayson is the Republican frontrunner for the seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Jim Bunning (R).
Kennedy School Announces Fall Fellows: Harvard's prestigious Kennedy School of Government announced its fellows class for the coming semester on Thursday and, as usual, it amounted to a virtual who's who of the political class. The group includes Stephanie Cutter, who oversaw the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and played a senior role during the Obama campaign last year, Kim Gandy, the former president of the National Organization for Women, Peggy Noonan, a Wall Street Journal columnist and special assistant to the late Ronald Reagan, and Gina Glantz, a longtime labor operative who managed former Sen. Bill Bradley's (N.J.) 2000 presidential campaign. In addition to these resident fellows who will live and teach on the campus, there are a handful of visiting fellows that include: former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) and former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe.
Chat Time!: The Live Fix weekly chat is scheduled for 11 a.m. For an hour, we'll take on all comers -- sort of like a king of the ring match. You can sign up for the RSS feed of the Live Fix and can submit questions early too. You can also just follow along in real time.
Say What?: "There's something about August going into September where everybody in Washington gets all wee-weed up." -- President Obama saying, well, something, during a speech to Organizing for America volunteers. (DNC officials said 200,000 people participated in the OFA webcast of the President's remarks on health care on Thursday.)
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