Gee, glad to see how intensely concerned our junior U.S. Senator John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, is about doing his job in the Senate.
With just eight weeks to go before the state Democratic primary election, Kerry’s opponent, Gloucester attorney Edward O’Reilly, is trying to get the senator to agree to a series of debates | 23 in all. Read about it here.
But Kerry, through campaign manager Roger Lau, says he can’t even think about debates until he knows when the Senate will recess. That generally happens sometime in August, but who knows exactly when?
All this attention to duty is commendable, I guess. But, I seem to recall that when Kerry was running for the big job – POTUS – he wasn’t at all concerned about whether the Senate was in recess or not.
I don’t blame Kerry for blowing off O’Reilly. Like any incumbent, he doesn’t want to give a challenger any free face time. He doesn’t want to be seen on the same stage with him – the challenger has everything to gain and Kerry would have nothing to gain, and perhaps a lot to lose.
But it would be nice if he, or his surrogates, would just be honest about it, and not try to cloak it in some kind of faux statesmanship. If Kerry wanted to debate, you can bet he would – recess or no recess.
Here’s a guess: O’Reilly will be lucky to get one debate.