The newest casualty. 56% unfavorable rating and a strong Repub. running against him with no one to protect him. Good by Pat
WASHINGTON — Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy, the last member of his famous family still serving in elective office, has decided not to seek a ninth term in Congress.
“I will not be a candidate for reelection this year,” the 42-year-old Kennedy says in an emotion-laden advertisement released by his office Thursday that will air Sunday night. Facing the camera in a blue suit and striped tie, the Rhode Island Democrat mentions his years of service and the death of his father, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, last summer.
But Kennedy’s decision “absolutely, unequivocally has nothing to do with” the congressman’s poor showing in recent polls, the shocking election of another little-known Republican state legislator, Scott Brown, to his father’s Senate seat or the generally grim mood of voters in Rhode Island and around the country, according to Sean Richardson, the congressman’s former chief of staff
