If Elizabeth Warren wins her campaign for Teddy Kennedy’s senate seat, I expect she will be the senior senator from Massachusetts within days. Why? Because John Kerry is going to replace Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. He wants the job, but more importantly, Obama owes him the job. If Kerry had not tapped Obama to give the 2004 Keynote Address at the Democratic National Convention, Obama would not be president today. Kerry also endorsed Obama over Hillary.
Kerry was probably quite disappointed not to be offered a position in Obama’s cabinet, but he able to console himself with the gavel of the Foreign Relations Committee. Next term, he will not be denied.
I think he is capable of being a very competent Secretary of State, although I doubt he will be half as formidable and effective as Hillary Clinton has been.
Who do you think has the inside track to get Deval Patrick’s nod to replace Kerry?
How about Barney Frank?
How about Barney Frank?
How old is Barney?
72.
I suspect Frank is tired of arguing with tables and might only be willing to do it to fill out the term. No doubt Patrick would prefer to put someone in there willing to fight to hold onto it.
That said, Warren and Frank could be a hell of a combination in the Senate.
I was on DFA TV earlier. I hope it went well.
Will they YouTube it?
I doubt it.
Too bad – apparently my DSL is too slow for the stream without a long pause every few seconds or so. Don’t know what’s up with that. I have no trouble at all with streaming a movie from Netflix. Maybe they’re doing extra buffering somehow.
This is way OT, but taking that link to The Hill, I can’t help but notice that all the “related videos” on the right side of the page are marginally to outright GOP propaganda.
There are 4 such videos:
I’m used to the fever swamp in the TheHill comment section, but this is just rigoddamndiculous.
“Michelle Obama Admits Defeat” WTF?
Kerry replacing Hillary would be excellent in my opinion. My only concern is that if Warren beats Brown, Brown would run for Kerry’s open seat and likely win. And once he gets in there for a 2nd time, it would be hard to get rid of him.
How? Kerry would resign so that Patrick could appoint his replacement and that would be someone who knows how to run a campaign(unlike Coakley)
Are you sure? Wasn’t Coakley an anointed one?
Massachusetts has special elections to replace United States Senators. Nobody gets appointed. Once Kerry’s gone, the seat is up for grabs. I don’t know why anyone would want to risk losing it in today’s political environment.
Christ.
It really surprises you that Paul Ryan is friends with scumbags?
And I suppose you saw that coming?
Watergaters are all over the GOP. It’s a yawn.
Sounds like a game of musical chairs, Massachusetts style. I must say that I was highly impressed with Deval Patrick.
He could pick himself, although that is generally frowned upon.
Prediction: Patrick US Senate 2014
As for 2012-2014, Elizabeth Warren if Scott Brown wins. Then Deval wait until 2018 or starts a Presidential run.
If Elizabeth Warren wins, Barney Frank (who will be 74 in 2014) for Kerry’s seat.
If the voters reject Warren it isn’t likely that the governor would appoint her.
I’m hoping Teddy Kennedy Jr. runs for the Senate. I’m beginning to think Massachusetts can only be won by a Kennedy.
It is a likely pick as a placeholder.
That would enhance the chances for Barney. He only needs to hold the seat for two years, then can retire on account of age.
I was actually pretty surprised that he wasn’t picked the first time around (the Hillary selection for SoS pretty much surprised everyone, I think). If he wasn’t picked this time around, I’d be very surprised.
That said, Elizabeth Warren is nowhere near a shoo-in right now. Obama’s going to crush Romney in MA, but the voters there are pretty adept at ticket-splitting (given there were 16 years of GOP governors before Patrick)…so unless she finds another gear, I’m worried we’re going to see a replay of the 2010 special election results.
What is it with Massachusetts and their lack of women elected to federal office?
Could that MA ticket splitting something to do with the MA Democrats not having a strong bench? Not that the situation out here in CA is anything to brag about given that “we” elected Schwarzenneger twice after MA elected Romney to a single term. Our “new” governor is 74 years old and Feinstein (our neo-liberal, war-hawk Senator) is 79 years old.
I explain MA ticket splitting like this:
The Beacon Hill Democratic machine controls the state legislature with veto-proof majorities. This is know before the first vote is cast, in every election. This makes the Speaker of the House the most powerful person in government, then the Senate President, then the Governor.
As a result, what the public wants in a governor is someone who can act as a check on the Speaker. If the Democratic candidate seems to weak to be an effective check, or too close to the Beacon Hill Dems, then the public knows it can safely elect the Republican without fear of having him implement an agenda they don’t like.
Between the huge majority the Dems enjoyed in the Senate in 2009, and Coakley running as the ultimate plugged in Massachusetts Democrat, I wonder if something similar didn’t happen with Scott Brown.
The usual explanation for MA’s ticket-splitting is the fact that when Dems get too lopsided a hold on the government, a few of them inevitably go so corrupt so stupidly that it’s not possible to keep looking the other way.
Also, our Repubs tend to be somewhat more reality-based than most, Romney and Brown being obvious counter-examples.
In a one-party state, the factions in the one party become the parties. One of those factions inside the Democratic party is pretty unsavory. There aren’t a lot places to go and see old-fashioned machine politics in action, but Beacon Hill is one of them. The walrus herd is in good shape.
Chicago is another. People say that Illinois is a blue state, but take Chicago and East St.Louis out and you have Indiana, deep red except for a few small pockets.
Hillary’s selection as Secretary of State didn’t surprise me. When you pick Biden as VP to allow Kerry to gain the chair of Foreign Relations and you want to unify the party after a grueling primary season, the choice of Hillary for SoS made perfect sense. Unless you were going to put in someone like Rand Beers (now doing DHS counterterrorism) or Holbrooke.
I’ll be disappointed it isn’t a woman.
Obama won’t get any advantage from paying back what he “owes” somebody who can’t do him any further good. Whatever benefit he got from putting Kerry in would be more than reversed by dumping Hillary, unless she really wanted out. She’d probably make a good AG, though.
Somehow Kerry just doesn’t appeal. Maybe it’s the lousy campaign he ran. I’d just as soon let him stay in the nonprofit sector. I don’t think he’d be nearly as good at State as Hillary.
I’m sure Hilary wants out. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to find out she has some dread disease, considering how she looks OLD and haggard lately.
Why Kerry? Well, Obama wants foreign relations cred and that almost shouts Senate. So he needs a Senator with foreign policy cred from a deep blue state with a Democratic Governor sure to keep the Senate seat blue. I’ll leave it to you political junkies. How many choices does that criterion leave? (Not rhetorical, I’d like to know and it would take me hours to figure out what someone out there in the Pond can figure out in minutes)
Hillary has made it clear she’s done come January 20th, 2013. I don’t see this as ‘dumping’ her.
I would expect who ever the President puts in SoS to be someone the President could be a good Presidential candidate since the Vice President is probably not running.
Kerry already had his chance, although it wouldn’t surprise me either way.
Did Massachusetts change their laws (again) for filling Senate vacancies? Scott Brown is a senator because Massachusetts didn’t give Patrick the power to appoint Ted Kennedy’s successor. But now he has the power to pick Barney Frank if there is another vacancy?
YES, YES, YES!!!!!
the Governor chooses an INTERIM replacement, with an election to be held within 180 days. Further, the replacement is expected (this is practice, not legally binding) to NOT RUN.