The U.S. Senate race is becoming competitive despite the best efforts of Democratic Party leaders, and that’s a good thing for the citizens. Despite their party’s name, the Democrats were poised to give voters as little choice as possible in replacing John Kerry. We have an interim senator whose main qualification is that he can be counted on not to run. (Hardly a good thing when our state’s other senator is a newbie, too.) And current U.S. Rep. Ed Markey was anointed the party’s choice before Kerry even left the job.
Now Democratic U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch of Boston has crashed the party. Unfortunately, it looks like prominent Republicans are not going to run for Senate, which is to say they’re going to run for governor instead. That’s too bad. But at least on the Democratic side, we’re going to have a race, a debate and a choice, and that’s how this important process should work.