It now turns to Joe Kennedy, the former congressman and nephew of the late senator, to decide whether to keep Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat in the family. The younger Kennedy has been out of the House for over a decade and decided to take a pass on two consecutive gubernatorial races (1998 and 2002) due to family problems. But he has kept a high public profile through his appearances in Citizens Energy commercials and he is of course a Kennedy. He would clear some fairly strong candidates out of the primary field, though the Boston Globe story linked above suggested Congressman Stephen Lynch of South Boston and Attorney General Martha Coakley would still run for the Democratic nomination anyway.
