I don't know what you learned from this senate campaign, but I learned plenty, and none of it is very inspiring.
Lesson number one, resumés don't run, people do. On paper, Gabriel Gomez looked perfect: a Latino, a businessman, and a former Navy Seal. But in person, he was underwhelming and unconvincing.
Lesson number two, old is not automatically bad. The most powerful word in politics is "change," and usually a younger candidate can make an older one seem tired and stale. But not this time!
While Markey's policies are as old as the Democratic Party playbook, and while he is no spring chicken, Gomez never gained any ground attacking Markey's age or long time in office.
Which leads to lesson number three, Massachusetts doesn't want to be bipartisan. In our current political world where too many citizens consider a compromise a collapse, Massachusetts voters showed little interest in working with republicans, and no one expects Markey to.
So bipartisanship is like gun control, we talk about it a lot, but it never happens.
In the musical chairs game of our all-Democratic delegation in Washington, Ed Markey now moves into John Kerry's senate seat, where he will vote just like Kerry and candidates are already lining up to replace Markey in the U.S. House.
If you didn't have much interest in this race, just wait until that one.