Posted within the hour on the NYTimes website:
Former Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II, the eldest son of Robert F. Kennedy, announced Monday he would not run for the U.S. Senate seat held for nearly 50 years by his late uncle, Edward M. Kennedy.
Kennedy was considered the prohibitive favorite if he had chosen to run, but had been beat to the punch by AG Martha Coakley, who filed last week. Stephen Lynch (MA-09), my congressman, has also taken out nomination papers and is mulling a run.
More on the flip...
Former Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey, who served under mittens and lost her own run for governor against Deval Patrick back in '06 announced yesterday she would not be running, and for the moment there doesn't seem to be a high profile Republican in the race. Curt Schilling has been making noises about maybe making a run for it, but despite his popularity as a gutty pitcher who helped the Red Sox to their first World Series in it seemed like forever he doesn't actually seem like a strong candidate.
Kennedy may have gotten into trouble because of his connection to Hugo Chavez. His Citizens Energy Corp. has been receiving free oil from Venezuelan PDVSA and has been using the proceeds of its sale to provide free heating oil to needy householders nationwide.
By not running, Kennedy leaves the field wide open. Coakley is an attractive candidate. My money -- and my vote -- is on her.
Update: Thanks to Kossack JML9999, who found the link to this article in yesterday's Boston Globe:
As Joseph P. Kennedy II contemplates a race to reclaim the Senate seat held by his family for nearly half a century, his most formidable obstacle may not be a Massachusetts politician but a political leader some 2,000 miles away: President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela.
The article looks like a warning shot at Kennedy, giving him an early indication of the kind of mud he might have faced if he had chosen to run. Not only does the Globe explicitly link him to Chavez:
Since 2005, Citizens’ 877-JOE-4-OIL campaign has been sustained by the oil fields of Venezuela. Chávez, who controls the industry there, has delivered crude oil at no charge to a Citizens affiliate, which has resold it and used the money to pay for oil deliveries to America’s poor. In the past two years, Citizens has been given 83 million gallons of crude by Chávez and sold it for $164 million - money used to fund almost its entire philanthropic mission.
but it also suggests that Kennedy himself is profiting personally from the relationship:
And he defended Kennedy’s salary - $545,000 in 2007, according to tax documents - by noting that most of it is funded by a for-profit Citizens affiliate and approved only after Citizens board members examine an outside consultant’s report on the salaries of other executives with similar responsibilities.
The article contains enough balance that it can't be considered a simple hit job, but it lays out the dirt in enough detail it may have contributed to Kennedy's decision today to not run.