Elizabeth Warren tiptoes into Markey-Kennedy primary fight

[brooklynite]

Boston Globe

She’s the biggest name in Massachusetts politics, and one of the luminaries of the left, but so far Senator Elizabeth Warren hasn’t spent much of her considerable star power on her home state’s highest-profile 2020 contest — even though she has technically picked sides.

Warren endorsed incumbent Senator Edward J. Markey over challenger Representative Joseph P. Kennedy III more than a year ago. And that was about it, until last week, when Warren authored a fund-raising e-mail for Markey.

“We need Ed Markey in the Senate now more than ever. He’s a leader, he’s a fighter, and he is a true progressive,” Warren wrote in the e-mail, which went out shortly before the quarterly fund-raising deadline.

Markey’s campaign credits it, along with a similar message from another high-profile backer, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, for helping Markey raise $300,000 in June’s final few days and deliver his biggest quarterly haul of the campaign.

[mahina]

1. Good!

Markey is excellent. Bad move, bad timing Joe.

[Hortensis]

2. Yes, good! Between her and Ocasio, maybe they'll

hopefully turn around this belief in some voters that replacing experienced progressive leaders with newbie nose-scratchers must be a good thing.

Joe III's not the usual nose-scratcher, of course, but he has so far never performed beyond dilettante level at any position. The four frustrating, undistinguished terms he spent stuck in the house were much longer than the typical time he'd previously invested setting rungs on his resume ladder. With what to show he's outstanding in any way, even with all the advantages of a Kennedy?