Ted Kennedy Already Three Cases of Beer Ahead

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Ted Kennedy Already Three Cases of Beer Ahead
by Dean Chambers

The Massachusetts U.S. Senate race is a farce, a real three-ring circus in which incumbent Senator Ted Kennedy can not only claim to drink his opponents under the table, but claims a lead of at least three cases.

In 1994, Kennedy trotted out all the usual liberal Democrat cliches, uttered them barely articulate enough to be understood, and apologized for his personal life, and convinced enough voters in the People's Republic of Taxachusetts to send him back to the Senate for another six-year term.

Six years later Kennedy looks unbeatable, and scared away any of the possible stronger challengers, including Governor Paul Celluci or former State Treasurer Joe Malone, who challenged Kennedy in 1988. A county District Attorney was the early and only candidate for the Republican nomination to oppose the nation's drunkest senator. But finding it nearly impossible to raise money, he dropped out of the race. Then Celluci and other party leaders enthusiastically invited businessman Jack. E. Robinson to enter the race. Robinson pledged to spend a million bucks of his own money to challenge Kennedy.

Soon after his campaign began, it started to end. Accusations of driving under the influence and sexual assault came to the surface, and leading Republicans dropped Robinson like a hot potato. Never mind the fact that all charges were dropped and Robinson was not convicted; Republican Party leaders stopped supporting him and failed to find another candidate to seek their nomination. As a result, it appears that Robinson might not obtain enough signatures to be placed on the ballot for the Republican Primary, ending his campaign. So the Massachusetts Republican Party, perhaps the most incompetent and mismanaged GOP state affiliate in the country, may have lost the chance to have a candidate running against Kennedy. Nice job guys, I'm sure Senator Kennedy appreciates the free pass.

But no good three-ring circus can be complete without the third ring. This year the third ring is the candidacy of the Libertarian Party nominee Carla Howell. Normally the Libertarian Party is not the third ring, but a sideshow. But this candidate, Howell, has managed to attract support from a few respectable people (including Barbara Anderson of Citizens for Limited Taxation) for a campaign run by one of the Libertarian Party's slickest masters of spin, the controversial Michael Cloud.

Cloud is the perfect kind of Libertarian consultant for the Clinton era. He seems to think if one spins the Libertarian message just right, that voters will magically start voting for Libertarian candidates, even those who take extreme Libertarian positions on the issues but use his "kinder and gentler" rhetoric. So the Howell campaign is being marketed like a cheap brand of diet cola, using the slogan "small government is beautiful." While many think government is far too large and expensive, reducing the size of government does not make most of us think first of the word "beautiful." Effective, more efficient and more in line with the Constitution and The Bill of Rights are accurate descriptions of a smaller government, but not "beautiful."

What's really beautiful for Cloud and his brand of Libertarians is the money. Cloud, who by profession is in the direct-mail business, convinces his clients to spend large amounts of money on direct mail fundraising of questionable effectiveness. The Howell campaign's disclosures with the Federal Election Commission show its expenses for fundraising are not much below the money those efforts brought in. So after Cloud receives his 15 percent fundraising commission, and his preferred mailing house gets their cut, there's not much money left for the actual campaign. Given this track record, including his work in the Howell campaign, Kennedy won't have to worry about seeing too many 30 second spots promoting "small government is beautiful" on the television screens this Fall. Most of the money will be pay for Cloud's expensive direct mail strategies, and overhead for a campaign that will do very little campaigning.

Kennedy has little to worry about in this campaign. If he can manage to keep from getting behind the wheel of an automobile, he'll be almost assured of re-election. The purpose of an election is to give us a choice over whom to elect as our representatives, but it requires the other parties to nominate good candidates and run competent campaigns. But in this three-ring circus, it's tough to tell which is the biggest joke; the most disgraced incumbent senator in the country or his two pathetic would-be challengers. Unfortunately Massachusetts doesn't put "None of the Above" on the ballot, which would be the only opposition Kennedy had.