Newcomer eyes Markey’s Senate seat
And Liss-Riordan definitely should be taken seriously
She has money, a good message and an incumbent opponent ripe for retirement.
Attorney and labor rights activist Shannon Liss-Riordan should be taken seriously — and for now her Democratic primary opponent, U.S. Sen. Edward Markey, seems to be getting the message.
Markey has wrapped himself in the Green New Deal movement and the aura of socialist superstar Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, hoping to attract liberal and millennial voters who may not be aware that the 73-year-old senator has been part of the Democratic establishment for decades.
But Liss-Riordan, who has been quietly traveling around Massachusetts talking to Democratic activists and union leaders, is not going away despite Markey’s $4 million campaign war chest.
She recently loaned her campaign $1 million to get it off the ground, and raised another $145,000 from donors, mostly from out of state. The fundraising haul surprised some Democratic observers and probably the Markey campaign, which has been trying to downplay his primary challenge.
“Unfortunately money plays an outsized role in politics,” Liss-Riordan said in an interview on the “Battenfeld” show on Boston Herald Radio. “I wish it weren’t that way but I knew going in that this was going to be an expensive race. I’m going up against an incumbent who has been in politics for nearly half a century.”
Liss-Riordan has represented working people for more than 20 years, filing workplace lawsuits on their behalf against corporate giants like American Airlines, FedEx and Starbucks.
She says she is reaching out to the same working-class voters who have been abandoned by leaders in Washington.
“I think people are very excited about the new, fresh perspective that I would bring,” she said. “People are really excited about a women’s rights activist running for this seat. I’ve been in the trenches, fighting and winning against big corporations.”
Liss-Riordan says she has been “inspired and motivated” by U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley’s winning campaign last year, in which she ousted longtime incumbent Democrat congressman Michael Capuano.
“I think it’s opened people’s eyes to this being possible,” she said.
On the issues, Liss-Riordan and Markey aren’t separated by much — they both support single-payer health care, climate change legislation and debt-free college.
Liss-Riordan does back impeachment of President Trump, something Markey has stopped short of doing.
But they are basically both liberal Democrats who strongly oppose President Trump, and that could hurt Liss-Riordan’s bid to create distance from Markey, whose campaign sends out multiple antiTrump fundraising appeals every day.
One thing Liss-Riordan won’t be is outworked, and that should get the attention of Markey, who hasn’t had a primary opponent since he won the special election for U.S. Senate in 2013.
“I’m going to do whatever I need to do to spread the word and let people know that the voters of Massachusetts have a choice,” LissRiordan says.
And that can only be a good thing for the voters.