Most prominent primary challenges in politics these days are driven by either ideological differences or some whiff of scandal. Today’s Democratic Senate primary in Massachusetts, where Rep. Joe Kennedy III is taking on Democratic Sen. Ed Markey, features neither. Instead, as the Boston Globe’s James Pindell put it, the bitter feud has “become a race about nothing, except an expensive, largely insider exercise about personalities.”
When the 39-year-old Kennedy, who was elected to Congress in 2012, first announced his challenge to Markey almost a year ago, it seemed an upset was brewing. After all, a Kennedy has never lost a race in Massachusetts. This young, auburn haired grandson of Robert Kennedy whose father, Joe II, also served in Congress, certainly looked like a new political scion on the rise and on a path to represent the state in the Senate, just like his two great uncles, John F. Kennedy and Edward Kennedy. Polling in the spring confirmed that sentiment, showing that the challenger was building a lead over Markey.
But now it’s Kennedy who seems like the underdog according
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