I spent a lot of time imagining an exciting Massachusetts senatorial election, with this result.  Lately reality has tried to keep up, with Scott Brown’s dramatic upset win a couple of years ago, and his hard-fought defeat to Elizabeth Warren last November.  Tomorrow we have the primary to select the nominees for the election to replace John Kerry, and no one cares.  Brown seems to have decided that there are easier ways to make a buck than trying to win elections as a Republican in Massachusetts, and all the other top-tier Republicans also gave the race a pass.  The senior Massachusetts congressman, Ed Markey, announced early and kept all but one other Democrat out of the race.

From a literary perspective, the race is dismal.  Markey is a reliable career liberal politician.  The frontrunning Republican, Mike Sullivan, is even blander — a standard-issue law-and-order Republican.  Not a hint of scandal from either of them.  The most interesting character is Gabriel Gomez, a Hispanic Republican ex-Navy SEAL businessman.  His life story is moderately compelling, but what’s fascinating about him is his utter lack of political smarts.  During the 2012 election he was the spokesperson for a group of Navy SEALs who accused Obama of endangering troops; that won’t get him any liberal votes.  After Kerry resigned Gomez turned around and wrote a suck-up letter to Govern Patrick asking to be appointed to the open seat, saying he supported Obama in 2008 and agreed with his positions on immigration and gun control.  What self-respecting conservative could vote for someone who supported the Kenyan socialist?

We’re going to get a Markey – Sullivan race, I think, and Markey should win easily.  This will be good for America, but not good for fans of political drama.