We won’t know that answer for sure until a special election is held on January 19, 2010, although the Democratic primary on December 10 of this year will go a long way toward giving us a clue.

Rep. Ed Markey dropped out of the race today, joining the ranks of early frontrunner former Rep. Joe Kennedy, and leaving the Democrats with three main candidates: U.S. Reps. Steven Lynch and Michael Capuano and state Attorney General Martha Coakley. Both congressmen are prototypical Boston pols, Lynch is an old school pro-life Catholic liberal and Capuano holds Tip O’Neill’s old seat, while Coakley has been elected statewide and, clearly, is a woman. It should be a barn burner.

On the Republican side, Chris Cilizza reports that it is former Bush 43 chief of staff Andrew Card’s race to lose. Then to add a little more intrigue, Republican-leaning former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling (he of the 2004 World Series bloody sock fame) is considering a run as an independent. His views can pretty much be summed up as a dude’s dude with a Christian outlook on things.

Life without a Kennedy in Massachusetts is a weird thing to think about it, but googling any one of the aforementioned candidates will help you picture it.

4 replies on “Who Is Replacing Ted Kennedy?”

  1. This is rich-
    Those assholes in Mass. will go four months without a Senator just because they were determined Romney not get to appoint anyone…

  3. The way the race is going, any thing posted about the current state of the race is obsolete before the next news cycle. Andy Card isn’t running after all http://www.politico.com/news/stories/090… . So is Christy Mihos (who told the Boston Globe he was quitting the Governor’s race to run for Senate, and then the next day told the Boston Herald to ignore everything he told the Globe. This is about as consistent as Mihos ever is.) And Jack E. Brown might be back in http://www.universalhub.com/node/27577#c…

    @1: The MA legislature is making motions that they change the law to allow the Governor to appoint an interim Senator until the special election. http://www.dankennedy.net/2009/09/11/pat… This is the same compromise that Romney suggested back when was Governor but it was rejected then.

    And @2: Barney Frank is probably best suited to stay in the House. If “the Senate is the saucer to cool the House’s tea.” then Frank is better off remaining hot tea. Yes, he would have a longer term, but that doesn’t matter because re-election is pretty much automatic for him. Yes, his vote would have more weight (1 out of 100 rather than 1 out of 435) but the other Eastern MA Congressmen have a similar voting record that the end is a roughly even weighting. He could get on Senate committees, but since is nature isn’t all that conciliatory it may not be much of a help. Frank is doing a good job where he is, and is probably most effective there. (I just wish Frank was representing me rather than Lynch.)

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