This article appeared first in Human Events Magazine on June 25, 2008

The Democratic Party’s 150 year long accusation of the Republican Party being for elitists only, has resonated with the fishermen, immigrants, construction crews and farmers of the Bay State since the civil war era.  In the United States most people are accustomed to electing their leaders. However, in Massachusetts there is a sort of liberal Democratic monarchy which has had a grip on her citizens since the Great Depression.

Of course the monarchy I refer to is the Kennedy Dynasty.  Joseph Kennedy built a financial empire which quickly encroached into the political realm in Boston.  The wheeling and dealing, intimidation and power grabs are all documented. The storied and tragic history of his sons we all know. What you may not know is how sympathy for the Kennedys has meant synergy for the Democratic Party in Massachusetts.

No Bostonian Democrat has ever ridden the coattails of the Kennedys better than John Forbes Kerry.  As a boy he sailed with JFK and at some point he wanted to be like JFK but he needed parallels. He volunteered for Vietnam while in the navy, documenting his experiences on videotape.  From Swiftboat to Senate, Kerry's plan worked. Standing in Ted Kennedy's shadow was not the goal but he failed to surpass Kennedy and has been far lesser in terms of "getting it done". Kerry is not known in Washington for accomplishments in terms of tangible or visible things. Instead he specializes in being controversial . Say what you will about Kennedy but he brought the bacon home. Kerry? Not so much.

Kerry is credited in Vietnamese history books for turning the war around for the communists.  He sided with Daniel Ortega against the Reagan Administration. Even the ultra-liberal Village Voice believes that, as the Senate Chairman on POW/MIA affairs, he covered up evidence that a significant number of live American POWs were not returned to America.  He voted against the Iraq war before voting for it. He promised America that Hussein had WMDs before calling President Bush a liar for agreeing with him.

Still, he has been returned to D.C. by the voters in Massachusetts four times. Will they do so again?

The Monarchy continues for the Kennedys despite Ted’s brain tumor but Kerry’s days may be numbered. A Democrat has had the audacity to challenge Kerry in this year’s primary and despite Kerry trying to get “his” party to throw Ed O’Reilly off of the ballot, the little known trial attorney garnished 23% of the delegates needed. Former Mass Democratic Party chairman Chester Atkins said, “John is an important senator, an important partner to Ted Kennedy and an important national voice. To have John distracted by someone who is just a nuisance candidate would be unfortunate.”  Republicans are elitists?

That almost 1 in 4 Democratic delegates want to see someone else represent Massachusetts as senator is astonishing.  Recent polls have shown even more shocking results for the Democratic presidential nominee of ’04.  A recent poll taken by Suffolk University (the only ones to get  New Hampshire’s primary right) shows that only 38% of voters want to see Kerry re-elected. After the primary, Kerry has one of the best stories in the 2008 election season waiting.

Meet Jeff Beatty. Beatty is a retired US Army Delta Force assault team commander, a former CIA counter-terrorist agent and served the FBI as a hostage crisis analyst. Beatty, a Harwich, Massachusetts resident recently sold a security consulting firm which he founded and ran for 12 years. This guy would make Tom Clancy blush. Beatty has appeared on all major television networks as a national security analyst.

• He predicted a package bombing 6 months before the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta
• He sent  letters out to major airlines warning them to “harden the cockpit doors”.  He urged security measures to prepare for hijackers who may use the planes as missiles. These letters went out in April of 2001.
• He was on the first Black Hawk helicopter ever shot down and then rescued American medical students in Grenada after he was wounded in the crash.

Now Jeff Beatty is ready to take on Senator Kerry who was once thought to be among the “safe” seats of Washington until only a year ago. A  Zogby Poll taken in July of 2007 showed that Kerry soundly defeats any Republican, Beatty included. However, the same poll shows a statistical tie when the same voters were allowed to review Beatty’s credentials!

 Beatty's donor list is well over 30,000 and has the Special-Ops alumni backing.

Beatty who was adopted at the ripe old age of 4 days, doesn’t know what his ethnicity is other than to say he is an American.  He claims he never thought of himself as someone who would run for office but after 9/11, he knows, in his mind, America can do better than John Kerry who missed over 75% of the Select Senate Committee on Intelligence meetings during the 1990s when the US was under constant attack by Islamic zealots (for those who were paying attention and not catching the waves on Nantucket). Beatty thinks he will be more hands-on than Kerry who didn’t bother to show up to one of these committee meetings for over a year after the first bombing of the World Trade Center.

Beatty is also making inroads with territory thought to be a Democratic given; labor. Beatty is meeting with union officials reminding them of Kerry’s coddling of illegal immigrants who are seizing their jobs. Beatty is quick to point out that the New Bedford fisheries union has disintegrated without a peep or any resistance from Senator Kerry.
What could be the second most important race in America this November is this one. If the bluest state in the union actually gives the boot to a liberal icon like John Kerry for a CIA counter-terrorist and Special Forces alumni such as Jeff Beatty, that would be quite a message to the nation and to the world.