2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Local Politics UMass Lowell-Herald poll: Ed Markey 20 points ahead of Gomez [View all]sofa king
(10,857 posts)For those of you who doubt the 11-dimensional chess being played by the President, let us recap the state of affairs so far. Thanks to the appointment of John Kerry as Secretary of State, President Obama has:
* Made Elizabeth Warren the senior Senator from Massachusetts, the first to be consulted in Congress on any matter pertaining to the Commonwealth, regardless of whom controls Congress;
* Placed one of the Commonwealth's most reliable and hard-working liberal Congressmen in position to be promoted to the Senate in Kerry's place;
* Safely handed off the local election mechanism for Markey's seat in the recently changed 5th District. If Markey wins, he will be able to lend powerful support to the Democratic candidate in that district; it is probably safe in the 2014 election;
* Nearly completed the transition of Massachusetts's Senate representation after a 20-year period of political stability.
Thus by appointing one Senator to a rewarding position in which he is excelling, President Obama has created two new war-horse Senators for Massachusetts, either one of whom will certainly be considered in Presidential politics from now on just as Kennedy and Kerry always were.
The balance of power in the Senate shall be further cemented in the Democratic favor on the eve of the most important mid-term elections we've had in decades.
Ed Markey has the potential to be one of the most eloquent and compelling liberal voices on the Senate floor for the next two decades, which in my opinion is the most important outcome. Let us have no surprises.