Out Back Question of the Week

"Patches" Kennedy spoke yesterday.  Actually, I am not sure that Talk Show Host Howie Carr is being fair to Rhode Island's US Representative Patrick Kennedy when he calls him Patches.  Shouldn't a member of the US House of Representatives get more respect?

Well, Mr Kennedy is a resident of Rhode Island, which made me take notice when he took up about 18% of the front page of The Boston Globe today, with his ranting about US Senator Scott Brown.  Mr Kennedy is from the other house and from another state.  Why do we care?  Then I thought that perhaps people in Rhode Island read The Boston Globe.  Perhaps there are no newspapers in Rhode Island.

Mr Kennedy asserts:

Seven out of 10 of Brown’s voters were labor households and he stressed that he was independent...

Seven out of ten?  I am trying to do the math here.  Is he just pulling that number out of the air?  Is that supposed to be union only or union and non-union?  Is that including all workers or only those traditionally considered blue color plus SEUI?  In the end, Mr Kennedy is telling us that about 50% of the voters in the last Massachusetts state-wide election were from labor households.

But, the lede was about the Brown campaign being a joke.  Mr Kennedy said

Brown’s whole candidacy was shown to be a joke today when he was sworn in early to cast his first vote as an objection to Obama’s appointment to the NLRB,

I guess.  But, if Senator Brown's was a joke, what was Ms Martha Coakley's?

Here was Richard Howe's take on Wednesday, which agreed with mine:

My guess is that his future colleagues have grown tired – maybe jealous is a better word - of the whirlwind PR tour that’s engulfed Brown since his election and let him know that he ought to report for duty and get to work.

Time to turn off the campaign mode and get down to work.

The Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank opined about the reason to move up the swearing in:

Still, the urgency requiring the hastily arranged swearing-in ceremony was something of a puzzle. Democrats had already agreed that their health-care reform bill was dead, so that couldn't explain it.

Was he rushing to town to vote against a jobs bill? That would be awkward, because Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican, is a co-sponsor of one of its main provisions. He may have been in a hurry to block Obama's nominee to the National Labor Relations Board, but this was hardly top priority for Massachusetts voters.

This doesn't exactly jibe with the assertion of Mr Kenney.

So, the question of the week is:

1. Was Richard Howe correct in saying that the "early" swearing in was about Mr Brown sucking all the oxygen out of the atmosphere, or,
2. Was Mr Kennedy correct in saying this was all about stopping the nomination of (the never named♠) new appointee to the NLRB, or,
3. Was this about Gail Huff having to get back to work?

And, of course, there are those who have the gumption to just up and put down some other reason.  Good on you.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  From The Washington Post:

A Senate panel has narrowly approved the nomination of union lawyer Craig Becker to become a member of the National Labor Relations Board.

But the loss of a Democratic seat in the Senate could mean that Becker won't take the post anytime soon.  Arizona Sen. John McCain has vowed to place a hold on the nomination.  When newly elected Republican Scott Brown is sworn in later Thursday, Democrats will no longer have the 60 votes needed to overcome a GOP filibuster.

Republicans claim that Becker would make pro-union changes on the NLRB without congressional approval.  The 13-10 party line vote in committee sends Becker's nomination to the Senate floor, where a vote could come as soon as next week.