Word: markey
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Markey tells it, however, the decision to run was almost a now-or-never proposition. Since 1954, the Seventh District has been represented in Congress by Torbert H. Macdonald '40. Macdonald became ill last spring, and there were many reports that he would not run for re-election. In May, he died unexpectedly, and 12 candidates eventually announced that they would run for his seat. But Markey was the first. The reason he decided to stay in the race, despite the presence of several mayors, a state senator, and Macdonald's administrative assistant, was that the re-election rate...
...situation didn't look good for Markey. He was from Macdonald's home town of Medford, and many of the political elders there had told him he would some day follow Macdonald's footsteps to the Capitol. But not yet, not at age 29. Markey himself felt the superficial differences keenly. Macdonald went to Harvard and Harvard Law School, was captain of the Harvard football team, was the Winthrop House roommate of former president John F. Kennedy '40 and, like Kennedy, was a World War'II Navy veteran. Markey, by contrast, is a milkman's son who went to Boston...
...Markey managed to distinguish himself in that confused field of candidates for the September 14 Democratic primary, mainly through his use of television and radio commercials. Before any of the other candidates took to the airwaves, Markey ran a radio commercial in which Bill Lee, a well-known pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, endorsed him. Those commercials raised his visibility considerably and catapulted him into a position of contending with the top four of the 12 candidates...
...factor for Markey was television. While in his second term in the State House, Markey pushed for passage of a bill to eliminate part-time district court judgeships in Massachusetts. Part-time judgeships were lucrative for judges, who were allowed to maintain private law practices, and for politicians, for whom they were patronage gold mines. It was no surprise, then, when the House leadership, under Speaker Thomas McGee of Lynn, fought against Markey's bill. It passed despite their objections, and McGee, known around the State House for his pettiness, gained his revenge by throwing Markey off the Judiciary Committee...
...this happened last January, and because of it, Markey received the Massachusetts Bar Association's Legislator of the Year award and was praised in many editorial columns. Looking for a theme for an advertising campaign, Markey's political strategists pounced on the Judiciary Committee incident...