Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Martha’s Winery, was by no means going to run for the Senate this yr.
She couldn’t afford to danger her Congressional grift, I imply, seat. It’d be like killing the golden goose. She’s already parlayed her race-baiting model into tens of millions of {dollars}, together with that new mansion of hers in Edgartown, regardless of having no school diploma and a jailbird husband.
Moreover, in the case of authorized graft, it doesn’t a lot matter whether or not you’re within the Home or Senate. Both means, you find yourself as a one-percenter, and behind that comes the pension.
Additionally, take into account how rather more money her thug husband’s firm, Conan Harris & Associates, will likely be raking in if the Democrats regain management of the Home subsequent yr. Overlook Martha’s Winery, poor oppressed sufferer Ayanna be scooping up Nantucket beachfront.
At the least if she stays in Congress, which units up Conan with that “consulting” gig.
Everybody paying consideration understood she’d by no means take an opportunity on dropping a racket as profitable as her present con. That’s why I didn’t hassle to write down about her alleged Senate run, though on my radio present I repeatedly talked about the truth that she would by no means run, typically with a realizing chuckle.
Be at liberty to tug the tape in case you doubt me.
What all politicians dream of is the “free shot.” That’s a political race the place you’re not risking your individual phony-baloney workplace, the place you’re not confronting the awful prospect of giving up that no-heavy-lifting sinecure, with lobbyists and aides you’ll be able to shake down, free parking, an enormous marketing campaign conflict chest that the toothless watchdog companies won’t ever significantly check out, and so forth. and so forth.
A political workplace, any workplace, beats working, though the idea of actual work is just not one thing Ayanna is acquainted with, not less than not first-hand.
Keep in mind how in 2018, she gained her present seat by defeating drained incumbent Mike Capuano.
She was already on the do-nothing Boston Metropolis Council, and didn’t must run for reelection till the next yr. So she had that almost all fabulous of political alternatives… a free shot.
She had nothing to lose, and she or he didn’t.
Since ousting the honky, Ayanna and her ex-con husband (10 years for drug trafficking) have been laughing all the way in which to the financial institution, in addition to to assorted Registries of Deeds, as they accumulate ever extra property, trip and rental each.
Satirically, if she had run for the Senate, Ayanna would have been going through off in opposition to Sen. Ed Markey. And his complete half-century career-plus within the hackerama has been constructed round a succession of “free pictures.”
He was first elected to Congress throughout the presidency of Gerald Ford. The congressman in his district, a classmate of JFK’s at Harvard, had died, and there was a particular election, in any other case often known as a free shot.
In a major subject of 12 candidates, Ed Markey romped to victory with 21.6% of the vote. It was a landslide.
In 1984, Sen. Paul Tsongas didn’t search reelection. The seat was open, nevertheless it was not a free shot, not in case you have been within the Home. It was, nonetheless, a free shot for the preening lieutenant governor, John Forbes Kerry. Win or lose the Senate battle, he’d preserve his State Home job till 1986.
One Congressman assessed his prospects and rapidly determined to remain put. However Markey and one other lackluster younger hack, James “Lumpy” Shannon, determined to make the leap.
However then Markey started to have the same old doubts of an unemployable hack. If he misplaced, what would grow to be of him?
Contemplating that the one job Markey had ever had was working a summer time ice cream truck, his future employment prospects seemed bleak. From “Mr. Chairman” again to “Mr. Frosty” – nah, he couldn’t danger it.
His transient 1984 Senate marketing campaign was a catastrophe. In a TV interview, he couldn’t reply the best of questions on any points. He received right into a home squabble together with his then-girlfriend that ended together with her tossing him out of her automotive on the Oak Grove T station in Malden.
Hilarity ensued.
A couple of days later, Ed Markey pulled the plug. So what if a bunch of state legislators had already given up their seats on Beacon Hill to run for his seat on Capitol Hill? He didn’t care. He elbowed all of them apart — something to keep away from returning to his Mr. Frosty gig.
The day Markey give up, he stopped by Ch. 7, the place I labored on the time, to make a videotape of his withdrawal. After he completed, I handed him considered one of his “Markey for Senate” fliers and requested him to autograph it for me, as a memento.
On the time, I had a second part-time job, as a political columnist for Boston Journal, again when it was an actual journal.
Markey took the flier and scrawled on it one thing like: “Howie, sometime I hope to have two jobs identical to you.”
Which means, that he might run for a special workplace and never have to fret about dropping the one factor standing between himself and a return to Mr. Frosty. A free shot, in different phrases.
And that’s how I knew Ayanna Pressley would by no means run for the Senate seat, not if it meant she would possibly lose her slot on the trough. If potential, she could also be much more unemployable than Mr. Frosty.
Satirically, in fact, Ed Markey did finally get to the Senate, though he needed to wait for an additional 29 years. In 2013, John Kerry resigned to grow to be Secretary of State, which meant an open seat, and a free shot, for Ed Markey.
He lastly made it. On his first roll name within the Senate, he voted “current.” After all he did! You possibly can take Mr. Frosty out of the ice cream truck, however you’ll be able to’t take the ice cream truck out of Mr. Frosty.
So farewell then, Ayanna Pressley. Possibly Rep. Seth Moulton can do to Ed Markey what then-Rep. Joe Kennedy III couldn’t do in 2020 – particularly, make the voters lastly understand what an empty swimsuit he’s.
Whenever you come throughout as an inconsequential twit at age 35, it’s exhausting to out of the blue develop gravitas at age 80. Plus, his comb-over appears to be like much more dated now than it did six years in the past, when he was a spry 74.
I suppose Ayanna will at all times wonder if she ought to have taken the not-so-free shot. That’s the unhealthy information.
The excellent news is, she’ll get to maintain doing her musing from the porch of her new mansion on Martha’s Winery.
(Order Howie’s new e-book, “Mass Corruption: Vol. 1: The Cops” at amazon.com or howiecarrshow.com/retailer.)
