Not Everyone Who's Old Is an Enemy of Progress
Here at the shebeen, we are fans of the great roiling transformation that's going on within the Democratic Party. (We were not onboard with Ayanna Pressley's challenge to Michael Capuano, but Ms. Pressley has proven us wrong.) But this Politico piece has us completely baffled.
But in the wake of Rep. Ayanna Pressley’s shock primary victory here in 2018, restive progressives are besieging the state’s Democratic establishment, forcing a handful of veteran incumbents to keep a close eye on their left flank.
None of them are getting pressed as hard as Sen. Ed Markey, who was first elected to Congress in 1976 - when Pressley was two years old - and won his Senate seat in a 2013 special election. In an increasingly youthful and diverse party, the 72-year-old Markey already has two lesser-known challengers - and there’s speculation that there could be more. "Given the political environment we're in, especially in Massachusetts, it makes every race a dangerous race. Some more than others, for sure. But if the people who get into the Senate race against Markey turn out to be real candidates, Markey's got a real problem," said Mary Anne Marsh, a political analyst at Dewey Square Group.
Put simply, there isn't any room to Markey's left on any major issue, unless you count age as ideology. For example, he was miles ahead of the curve on the climate crisis. (He was the first senator to endorse the Green New Deal.) Nobody has been better on the threats to democracy inherent in our newly wired society. And the polling data cited as evidence that Markey is in trouble is relatively meaningless without a credible Republican challenger, of which there is none. And this strikes me as flat-out weird.
Markey isn’t the only incumbent in the state’s all-Democratic delegation looking over his shoulder. The well of pent-up progressive talent is also generating a handful of House primary challenges, including to longtime Reps. Richard Neal and Stephen Lynch, and four-term Rep. Joe Kennedy III.
The only reason for there to be a primary challenge to Congressman Kennedy is to ratfck the Democratic Party. (It is significant that there's no apparent challenger named and, therefore, no reason for Kennedy's name to be tossed around in the piece.) Neal and Lynch? OK, they're old hands, and Lynch is well to the right of the rest of the delegation. But Kennedy is more likely to run for Senate one day than he is to lose to a congressional primary. This is just nonsense.
"I think people like Ayanna Pressley and [progressive star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] and others who ran … [have] shown that there's a path for people with different life experiences and different viewpoints. And the energy and excitement that people have brought to Congress and other positions, I just think it's exciting and new and important," said Doug Rubin, the consultant behind former Gov. Deval Patrick's out-of-nowhere primary victory in 2006 and Sen. Elizabeth Warren's 2012 defeat of former Sen. Scott Brown. "I think that competition is good for Democrats."
Rubin is currently advising Steve Pemberton, who is exploring a run against Markey. A corporate executive and inspirational speaker, Pemberton’s best-selling memoir about the neglect and cruelty of his foster home in New Bedford, Mass., was recently made into a movie. Pemberton recently moved back to Massachusetts from Chicago.
Pemberton has a fascinating biography but, again, how he improves on Markey as a member of the Democratic Party beyond being younger is hard to see.
The same goes for Shannon Liss-Riordan, who is running a fairly conventional outsider-insider campaign. From WBUR:
The 49-year-old Brookline resident launched her campaign against the longtime member of Congress on Monday, presenting herself as a champion for women, blue-collar workers and families and vowing to break the "endless cycle" of maintaining the status quo. "Some people have called me the sledgehammer," Liss-Riordan says in a launch video. "Others say I'm corporate America's worst nightmare. My kids just call me mom.
"I'm in this race in order to offer voters in Massachusetts a choice," Liss-Riordan told WBUR. "I have been a tireless worker and a tireless advocate for the rights of working people, and I see the issues that are happening in the workplace are only fueling income inequality - which is growing to maddening levels."
All good arguments, but what in the hell they have to do with Edward Markey is beyond me. And if the primary campaign works to create some bizarro image of Edward Markey as a chowderhead Joe Manchin then everybody loses. As I said, the transformational energy within the Democrats is a very good story and, I think, a very good development. Time for a sense of control to assert itself, though. Not everybody who's old is the enemy.
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