Galvin has name-recognition gap to bridge with Zakim

Here is what Secretary of State Billy Galvin should have said to Josh Zakim at the Democratic Party convention Saturday.

“Josh, if your name were Josh Jones instead of Josh Zakim, your candidacy would be a joke.”

That is a play on words of what state Attorney General Edward McCormack leveled against young newcomer Edward Moore “Ted” Kennedy in the famous “Teddy/Eddie” debate during their classic fight for the U.S. Senate in 1962.

Ted Kennedy, whose brother Jack Kennedy was president and his other brother Robert Kennedy was U.S. attorney general, was making his first run for office. He was 30 years old and never had a real job.

McCormack, 39, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, was a former Boston city councilor who was the state’s attorney general. His uncle was U.S. House Speaker John W. McCormack.

As McCormack battled Kennedy for the Democratic Party nomination, McCormack’s resentment of Kennedy boiled over. He accused the inexperienced Kennedy of running on his family name during their debate.

McCormack said, “Teddy, if it (his name) was Edward Moore, your candidacy would be a joke. But nobody’s laughing because your name is not Edward Moore. It’s Edward Moore Kennedy.”

McCormack was right, but he lost anyway, and Kennedy went on to have a long political career in the U.S. Senate.

Like McCormack, Galvin, the longtime secretary of state, was upended by a political newcomer with a famous name, Josh Zakim, a Boston district city councilor. This contest was for the party endorsement for secretary of state.

In a surprising upset, Zakim beat the veteran Galvin by gathering 54.8 percent of the vote to 45.2 percent for Galvin. Having easily passed the 15 percent requirement, both will be running for the nomination in the Sept. 4 primary.

While this is Zakim’s first statewide campaign, the rookie had an advantage over Galvin because he just happened to have a famous bridge named after his father.

And, no, we don’t mean the refurbished Longfellow Bridge that spans the Charles River. That bridge is named after poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

We mean the renowned Zakim Bridge that connects Boston with Charlestown and beyond, which is jam-packed with traffic every night.

It is named after Josh Zakim’s father, Leonard Zakim, a human rights activist.

It just so happens that the bridge — and the Zakim name — is mentioned on all the television news traffic reports every day and every night and has been for years. Everybody has heard of the Zakim Bridge. Not everybody has heard of Billy Galvin.

To drive home the connection, Zakim has termed his candidacy as a “bridge to progress.” Get it? His campaign literature has an image of the iconic bridge on it.

Now Galvin finds himself not only running against a man, but running against a bridge as well.

Galvin has also had to deal with Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, who, though absent from the convention, had the hundreds of Boston delegates he controlled vote for Zakim. It is a safe bet that Walsh will have his troops out voting for Zakim on primary day.

And it is safe to say that more people in Massachusetts will be hearing the name Zakim more often than the name Galvin, even though Galvin, 67, has been secretary of state for 24 years, and was a state rep before that. He has been in politics before Zakim was even born.

Galvin is an expert on elections. He has been strict on regulating lobbyists, overseeing corporations and regulating securities. He generally has done a respectable job administrating the office, which includes the Massachusetts Archives and the Massachusetts Historical Commission.

But that does not matter much. Progressives, who now control the Democratic Party in Massachusetts, view Galvin as one of the old-time “regular” Democrats, most of whom have left or been forced out of the party. He is just another old white guy to be pushed aside.

It also does not matter much that most people have no idea who the secretary of state is, let alone what he does.

That is why a smart candidate like Zakim has campaigned on things like women’s rights and pro-choice, standing up for immigrant rights and, of course, opposing President Trump.

He can’t do much, if anything, about these issues, but they sound good.

“It’s not just about administering an office,” Zakim said. “It’s about leading and pushing for progressive changes.”

Is Zakim a bridge too far left for Billy Galvin?