Did Sen. Ed Markey watch last week’s WBZ-TV debate between the two men who want to replace him?
“I saw it,” said Markey in an interview late last week, his first local TV one-on-one since the Senate race began. “I'm ready to debate Seth Moulton, and in the fall I'm ready to debate Mr. Deaton as well. I'm ready to go.”
An incumbent running a Rose Garden strategy (better make that the “White Stone Paver’” strategy now that Donald Trump has worked his beautification magic) would have pretended he didn’t watch the debate and declined to name check his challengers. But Markey suddenly appears eager to engage, agreeing to three debates before the September 1 primary and going on offense against Moulton.
Anyone who saw him strip the bark off Congressman Joe Kennedy III, mulch it with Ipecac, and shove it down Kennedy’s throat back in 2020 should not be surprised.
We didn’t want to wait another month for the Moulton/Markey debates to begin, so we read back some of Moulton’s criticisms from the debate with Deaton. “A lot of people in Massachusetts right now feel like they don't have a voice in our politics, and they need a fighter, they need someone who's going to change the playbook,” said Moulton. “There just comes a time to pass the torch to the next generation.”
Markey could have waved that off by pointing to the recent Suffolk/Globe poll showing only 24% of voters consider his age “a big factor” in their decision, or aped Joe Biden’s strategy of claiming age brings wisdom and competence. Instead, he insisted “this is the most energized I have ever been,” and backed it up with a rapid-fire strafing of Trump-era budget cuts and their impact on Massachusetts. “I have voted against more of Donald Trump's nominees than any other member of the United States Senate. I was the first senator to call for the abolition of ICE. I get up every single morning saying that I have to fight for working families in our state who have been harmed by this Trump agenda,” he said. “Donald Trump brings out the Malden in me, and I am bringing that fight to the floor of the Senate every single day.”
Oh no, not “the Malden”!
As terrifying an image as that may be, it doesn’t address other Moulton complaints, such as Markey’s vote to confirm Marco Rubio as Secretary of State and his allegiance to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who Moulton says isn’t “holding the Trump administration accountable.”
Interestingly, Markey conceded both points.
“Every single senator voted for Marco Rubio. Within two days it was clear that was a mistake. It was no longer the same Marco Rubio. It was ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers,’” he said. “Since then I have voted against every single one of Donald Trump's nominees for everything, because I realize that this MAGA-controlled Republican Party does not allow any nominee to actually act in a way which is consistent with the protection of the public interest of the interests of ordinary families in our state.”
Hard to see where Moulton’s indictment draws oxygen from there. And on Schumer, Markey said “I do agree that we do need, after we win the House and Senate…[to] have a discussion of new leadership, new ideas, new directions for our country.”
Then Markey picked up where he left off at the Democratic State Convention with his indictment of Moulton’s ethics. He was eager to talk about a WBUR report that Moulton, who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, has at least $1 million worth of stock in startups that hold contracts with their Defense Department. That doesn’t violate any congressional ethics rules, and there’s no evidence of any conflict of interest or insider trading. But Moulton is now putting the assets in a blind trust, a nod to the story’s undesirable optics.
And the lack of any smoking gun didn’t deter Markey from fitting Moulton with Satan horns. “Donald Trump is smiling [at] the self-enrichedness of Moulton, because that's what President Trump does with his family, just trying to take advantage of public service,” he said.
Back to the Suffolk/Globe poll, this time from April, where nearly a third of the voters said they had never heard of Moulton (9%) or were undecided about him (20%).
Mud tends to stain a blank canvas.
And how exactly is Moulton supposed to repair that picture during the black news hole of dead summer against an opponent who, while definitely old, shows no sign of losing his edge or his appetite for political combat?
