Let me finish tonight with this.
Scott Brown declared tonight that he's not running for senator again. I assume this means that he will run for governor.
It's a smart move. Being a legislator is not for everyone. To do it right, you have to have the patience and the personal instinct about other legislators to move a bill forward, to get your views written into national policy and law. It's not for everyone, perhaps not for Scott Brown. He might be smart to wait his chance and run for an executive job—one that he can grab, hold and really do something with. We'll see.
As for the Senate seat in Massachusetts, I have a firm grip on who I'd like to see take it.
Congressman Edward Markey is the most principled person I know in politics. He has spent his career standing up to the special interests—the polluters, the people who make bad products, the people who take advantage, the greedy. He has sat on legislative committees and seen the power of special interests and he, again and again, has taken them on.
Markey is a committed believer in avoiding the dangers of nuclear war—a committed believer in having a safer, healthier environment. He has always, from his first days in the House back in the 1970s, refused to buckle to the forces of selfishness and power.
Ed Markey is running for the Senate seat once held by Edward M. Kennedy. He enjoys the support of Mrs. Kennedy, the backing of those who still hold dear what the Kennedys have stood for in Massachusetts. He supports women's rights to a tee and will make a great colleague to the courageous Senator Elizabeth Warren.
I'm enormously proud to call Ed Markey a friend, to have done so since my years with the great Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill, Jr. I am thrilled that he now leads the Democratic race for the Senate nomination and am glad for the country that we have such fine Americans ready to take up the task of leadership. He is clean, he is strong, and he has the vision to make a powerful difference for the progressives—not just of Massachusetts, but the country.
With Warren and Markey the state will have among the sharpest delegations in the entire Senate.