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Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Kennedy - Voters are Out for Blood

The son of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy says a Republican victory in the race for his father's Senate seat is a sign that the American public is out for "blood."

As election returns came in Tuesday night, Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) said it's clear that voters wanted “a whipping boy” for all the lost jobs and foreclosed homes.

“It’s like in Roman times they’d be trotted out to the coliseum and the lions would be brought out,” Kennedy told reporters at the Capitol Tuesday night. “I mean, they’re wanting blood and they’re not getting it so they want to protest and, you know, you can’t blame them. But frankly, the fact is we inherited this mess and it’s becoming ours.”

Kennedy did not fully wade into the battle for the seat, he said, he "never wanted anyone to think for a moment” that it was his family’s seat.

“It wasn’t my dad’s seat, it was Massachusetts’s seat,” Kennedy said. “My dad was honored to occupy it every six years when the people of Massachusetts voted him in again.”

But Kennedy also offered a scathing review of Democrats and perhaps a back-handed jab at Democratic candidate Martha Coakley, whom many in the party are blaming for the loss of a seat Kennedy's father held for more than four decades.

While he said that the swing toward Republican Scott Brown represented a "general protest vote," he also said that each candidate has an obligation to do his best to make his case. - Politico Story

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