TIME AND TIDE, Chaucer told us, wait for no man. Except, it seems, Ed Markey.
Against the backdrop of a national electorate increasingly fed up with the old ways of Washington and the aging politicians who dominate its halls of power, Massachusetts voters rejected a challenger campaigning on the theme of generational change and delivered a resounding victory to an 80-year-old incumbent who arrived on Capitol Hill when Gerald Ford was in the White House.
Markey, a five-decade fixture in Congress – with the long-winded, stentorian speaking style to prove it – easily defeated US Rep. Seth Moulton in Tuesday’s Democratic primary, piling up a nearly 2-to-1 margin over the 47-year-old one-time Marine platoon leader.
Markey, who came late to statewide office, winning the Senate seat in 2013 after serving more than 35 years in the House, has fashioned himself into the Bernie Sanders of Massachusetts politics – an avuncular, gray-haired champion of impatient, young progressives.
Markey played the card brilliantly six years ago against another young Democratic congressman, Joe Kennedy III, becoming the first person to beat a Kennedy in a Massachusetts election.
Fast forward to this year’s race and Markey – who turned 80 during the primary campaign against Moulton – managed to convince voters again to leave aside any concerns about his age.
In what became practically his campaign mantra, Markey repeated the line to all who raised the issue: “It’s not your age, it’s the age of your ideas that are important.”
Markey has not been in complete denial over the inevitable facts of life. He said during the race that, if reelected, this would be his last six-year term.
In other words, while he has insisted that he is not too old to do the job, he seemed to tacitly admit that he almost is.
One problem with Moulton’s call for generational change was that Markey didn’t fit the part of a one-time contender well past his expiration date. He exhibits none of the sharp decline Joe Biden showed toward the end of his presidency, or the somnolent eyelid droop that Donald Trump can’t seem to fight off in White House meetings, even with a bank of cameras in front of him.
Markey still has a youthful bounce to his step and energetic manner. That made it hard for Moulton to get much traction from the issue, even when Markey showed signs of his age, such as his fumbling answer to a debate question about the artificial intelligence software powering search functions in his cellphone and iPad.
Massachusetts voters have not been entirely immune to the call for fresh voices, even when they don’t come with a dramatic shift in positions on major issues. Eight years ago, Ayanna Pressley upended a 20-year Democratic incumbent by arguing she brought a different lens, not necessarily wholly different views, to the issues facing Congress. “Change can’t wait” was her campaign theme.
Yesterday, voters decided it can.
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For Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, the primary delivered a harsh lesson in the limits of transferring mayoral might to other contests.
Angry over the state Senate’s refusal to go along with a Boston home-rule plan to shift more of the tax burden onto commercial property owners, Wu decided to go all in on behalf of two challengers to incumbent Democratic senators representing parts of Boston who defended the Senate stance. While the final outcome of one of the races is still unclear, it’s possible that she will have gone 0 for 3 when also considering a third state Senate contest where Wu weighed in.
In the South Boston-Dorchester district, incumbent Nick Collins beat Latoya Gayle by roughly 10 points. Meanwhile, incumbent Will Brownsberger, who represents Belmont, Watertown, and parts of Cambridge and Boston, was in a nail-biter with former Wu aide Daniel Lander, but was holding onto a 61-vote lead, according to the latest AP tally with all precincts reporting.
It turns out the real voter frustration with Beacon Hill incumbents representing Boston may have come despite Wu’s positioning, not because of it: Sen. Mike Rush, a moderate from West Roxbury who had the mayor’s endorsement, appears to have been toppled by progressive challenger Persis Yu, a Hyde Park attorney who had the backing of a long list of left-leaning groups.
