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Wed. column ping

Martha Coakley, don’t hex the ballot
By Howie Carr | Wednesday, December 16, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists

Martha Coakley better be careful what she wishes for.

She claims to want this third-party guy named Joe L. Kennedy included in all her Senate debates against GOP state Senator Scott Brown.

Doesn’t Martha understand the notorious dementia that grips the voting public of Massachusetts whenever they see the name “Kennedy” on the ballot?

I’m not saying Kennedy will cost her the election. But why give her dim-bulb voters a chance to get mixed up, yet again, and pull the lever they so instinctively yearn to? Let’s face it, she’s not fishing in the deep end of the gene pool to begin with.

You understand the obvious strategy. The more candidates, the less the TV viewers will be able to focus on her record, or lack thereof. You see, Martha is a prosecutor from the Tom Reilly school. In Chicago they say, don’t make no waves, don’t back no losers.

In the Reilly-Coakley school of prosecuting, the motto is: Don’t make no waves, don’t indict no potential campaign contributors.

But Martha’s problem is, with a Kennedy on the ballot - any Kennedy - any damned thing can happen. Back in the 1950s, three times Massachusetts elected a treasurer named John F. Kennedy, the F being for Francis, not Fitzgerald. The other JFK probably could have gone on having it made, except he decided to run for governor in 1960, the same year the real guy was running for president.

The other JFK finished fifth. Two other John Kennedys ran for treasurer. They lost too. Three other John Kennedys ran for office that year too - two for state rep and one for Norfolk County treasurer. I think they lost too.

Back in 1986, Joe Kennedy - Joe P., not Joe L. - was running for Tip O’Neill’s seat. I knew a guy working the polls on primary day in Medford - Ed Markey’s congressional district. All day, the guy said, old ladies would go into the voting booths and then come out, waving their ballots.

“I came down here to vote for Kennedy,” they’d yell. “Why isn’t Joe Kennedy’s name on the ballot?”

In those days the electorate was befuddled by beer. Now, I would venture to guess, most of Martha Coakley’s potential voters are addled by powerful prescription meds. Does anyone seriously think the electorate is shrewder than it used to be?

So Martha wants Joe Kennedy. Do you suppose she’d feel differently if the third name on the ballot was . . . Josephine Kennedy?
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1219219