So Ted Kennedy passed away last night. Brain cancer is an awful way to go, but seriously, Ted should have resigned when he found out he had the cancer (he probably should have retired even before that, you know, to pass the torch to a new generation and all that). Had he done that we’d have a new senator already. But he didn’t, and here we are. I knew he had to be close to death when he publicly leaked the letter he evidently wrote in June asking for the succession rules to be changed. They shouldn’t be, of course. Not if we live in a country of laws. But they probably will be.

To my mind, barring the appointment (or should I say anointment) of another Kennedy for the seat, that just means that one Democrat will be given an advantage over the others vying for the seat. But there will still be an election. I assume that Marty Meehan, who always wanted to be in the Senate, will run. Ed Markey was on NPR today, and he wouldn’t say he wasn’t interested in the seat, which of course means he is. I assume some other House reps will come out to run for it as well.

What’s perhaps more interesting is who is going to run on the Republican side. With so few candidates available, they’ve all lined up to run for Governor, and none are left to run for Senate. Perhaps Mihos could switch what he’s running for, avoiding a bruising primary battle that he’ll likely lose. Or better yet, Tim Cahill. With no likely Republican opponent, he could run for the seat as the de-facto “conservative” in the race. He could very well win in such a scenario. In fact, I think it’s a more likely win than his quest to be governor.

It will be interesting at any rate. What I’d really like to see is some bloggers throw their hats into the ring. All of these guys have been in there far too long in my opinion. It’d be nice to have some non-professionals run for office for a change.

UPDATE: Phil Greenspun has some piquant thoughts on Kennedy’s passing.

Tags: Chrisy Mihos, Marty Meehan, Rule of Law, Ted Kennedy, Tim Cahill

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 26th, 2009 at 9:00 am and is filed under News & Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.