Stephen Lynch Thinks He Should Fill Ted Kennedy's Shoes-- Or At Least His Seat

Every member of Massachusetts' congressional delegation has a voting record that spells "progressive"-- except one: Stephen Lynch. Even his isn't a bad voting record. Over the course of his House career he'd be ranked the 111th most progressive member, which isn't terrible-- a respectable moderate. Although... when you look at the South Boston-Brockton district he represents, and see how solidly Democratic it is (PVI is D+15; Obama, like Al Gore, won with 60%; home state boy John Kerry did slightly better), he looks like he could be doing a lot better. And this year, he's actually done worse-- the 120th most progressive, nestled between two Blue Dogs, Adam Schiff and Joe Baca. Still, not a bad voting record at all, just the least good in the whole delegation. And on Friday he pretty much declared that he's running for Ted Kennedy's old Senate seat.

A leader for working families he isn't. And if there's one thing we really and truly need in the House of Lords-- other than abolishment-- would be some leaders on the issues that can bring some relief to working families. It gets mighty lonely being Bernie Sanders, Jeff Merkley, Sheldon Whitehouse, Sherrod Brown, Ed Kaufman, Jack Reed, Barbara Boxer, Richard Durbin and Frank Lautenberg. It looks like Al Franken may make it 10 members of the upper chamber who will be consistently more interested in the interests of working families than the interests of their campaign donors. That's one in 10. It would be kind of nice if the man person replacing Ted Kennedy isn't just a so-so backbench moderate but an actual liberal leader-- kind of a roaring lion...

I've been far more impressed with the only other declared candidate, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley. Joseph P. Kennedy II (whose public record is, at best, sketchy), and liberal congressmen Mike Capuano and Ed Markey are also considering joining the fray. Lynch, who will run as the conservative in the race-- a Massachusetts conservative isn't the same as Jim Inhofe, Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann-- wants as many liberals in the race as possible so he can benefit from them all splitting the vote.