BOSTON — Joseph P. Kennedy II’s decision not to seek the U.S. Senate seat long held by his late uncle, Edward M. Kennedy, has touched off a succession scramble.
Three veteran Massachusetts congressmen had been deferring to Robert F. Kennedy’s eldest son, but they were recalibrating — and informally coordinating — in the aftermath of Joseph Kennedy’s announcement Monday that he would not be a candidate.
Democratic aides said Rep. Michael Capuano planned to take out nominating papers as early as today. Rep. Edward J. Markey issued a statement saying he was weighing his House seniority against the prospect of being the No. 100 member in the Senate. And Rep. John Tierney said he expected to make a decision within the week.
The three have been in direct conversations and speaking through intermediaries as they try to determine who would have the best prospect in the race, according to one Democrat who has been privy to the conversations but spoke only on the condition of anonymity.
A fourth colleague, Rep. Stephen F. Lynch, has already pulled nomination papers and said Monday he was likely to declare his candidacy within the next week.
Attorney General Martha Coakley became the first high-profile Democrat to declare for the seat when she announced her candidacy last week.
On Monday, her supporters lined city intersections for two blocks around the hotel hosting the Greater Boston Labor Council breakfast, testifying to her early organizational advantage in the 90-day sprint to the primary election.
“We’re off and running,” Coakley said as she shook hands outside.
On the Republican side, state Sen. Scott Brown said Monday he is formally “testing the waters,” a Federal Election Commission designation allowing candidates to raise and spend up to $5,000 assessing a campaign.
Brown, a 16-year municipal and state official, has been in the military for 29 years, most recently in the Massachusetts National Guard as a lieutenant colonel in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps. His eldest daughter, Ayla, gained national prominence in 2006 as a Hollywood finalist on TV’s “American Idol.”
Former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, a former state representative from Holbrook, is said to be assessing a race, as is former U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan.
One Bay State Republican, Selectman Bob Burr of the Boston suburb Canton, has already declared his candidacy for the Republican nomination.
Kennedy’s decision reshaped not only the race, but also sounded a grace note of sorts on his family’s storied political history in Massachusetts.
In a statement, the former six-term congressman said he cares about those seeking decent housing, fair wages and health care. But he added, “The best way for me to contribute to those causes is by continuing my work at Citizens Energy Corp.”
The nonprofit organization provides free heating oil to the poor, but Kennedy likely would have faced campaign questions about fuel it received from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez — a persistent U.S. critic.
He also has settled into a comfortable lifestyle since leaving Congress in 1999, taking home a $545,000 salary as Citizens Energy’s president as of 2007, and being spared the barbs he has faced from some local columnists recently for past temper tantrums, a supposed sense of entitlement and high pay.
Yet Kennedy also may have garnered support from the legions of Massachusetts Democrats who long supported his uncle, to whom he paid tribute in a widely applauded memorial service speech last month. He also had name recognition among national followers of his father, who was a U.S. senator from New York when he was assassinated in June 1968 while seeking the Democratic presidential nomination.
“My father called politics an honorable profession, and I have profound respect for those who choose to advance the causes of social and economic justice in elective office,” the 56-year-old Kennedy said. Friends said that among those who had been urging him to consider a candidacy were his own sons, 28-year-old twins Matthew and Joseph III.
The decision surrenders a seat the Kennedy family has held for all but two years since 1953, when John F. Kennedy moved from the U.S. House to the Senate, before being elected president in 1960. It became vacant Aug. 25, when Edward Kennedy died of brain cancer at age 77. He was first elected to the Senate in 1962.
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