The People's Seat - Narrated by suffolk university professor and history chair robert allison

You'll have to forgive Massachusetts democrats for calling it "The Kennedy Seat". Before Scott Brown and his green pick up ran over favorite daughter, Martha Coakley, no one under AARP age was even alive when a non-Kennedy last held it. Now they call it the people's seat, which is a good name because it's certainly been filled by interested people. The current resident, republican Scott Brown, won by running as a regular guy, but he wasn't the first. John F. Kennedy may not have had a barn jacket, but he did have a common man shtick that helped him beat the silver spoons off of Henry Cabot Lodge Junior in 1952. JFK was also the first Irish Catholic president, but did you know that David Walsh, who held the seat for four terms after World War I, was the first Irish Catholic elected state-wide in Massachusetts? Jack Kennedy's men was also political pay back. Henry Cabot Lodge Junior's grandfather, Henry Cabot Lodge, had beaten JFK's grandfather, John F Honey Fitz Fitzgerald, for the seat thirty six years of earlier. Lodge Junior also ran against James Michael Curly, who dubbed him "little boy blue", except after the votes were counted, it was Curly who was blue and Lodge who was blowing his horn. The first Cabot to hold the seat, George, was also the first person to hold it, period. With that sort of pedigree it's no wonder someone came up with this little ditty: "Here's to dear, old Boston, home of the bean and the cod, where the Lowell's speak only to Cabots and the Cabots speak only to God." Well it would be fun to imagine what those debates were like, anyway. Of course it was a bit of a bad rap. After all, Lodge was the first directly elected holder of the seat after the ratification of the 17th Amendment in 1912. What he wasn't, though, was the first Henry to hold the seat. That was Henry Dawes, whose progressive views on Native Americans earned him the nickname "friend of the indians." The friends of Scott Brown...not so much. Brown also likes calling Elizabeth Warren "professor", a dig at her gig teaching at Harvard. Maybe that's because the last time a Harvard professor held the seat was more than two centuries ago. That guy? John Quincy Adams. You want mudslinging? Professor Adams could dish that out. In fact, he once called Daniel Webster a "heartless traitor to the cause of humanity". How uncouth. Nowadays, we have super packs for that sort of thing. Speaking of Webster, he had quite a rep with the ladies. Maybe that's why he had a standing reservation at the Union Oyster House. So did JFK. Reckless youth, indeed. Then there was Charles Sumner. This uncompromising abolitionist beat several opponents to serve four terms during and after the civil war. That prompted South Carolina congressman, Preston Brooks, to take a new approach. If you can't beat him, beat him...with a stick. Summer almost died after Brooks beat him with a cane on the senate floor. Thank goodness Ted Kennedy only administered beatings at the ballot box. He brushed back numerous challengers over the years, including Multiple-Choice Mit. Of course on November 6th, the choice is yours, and how can you beat that?