Elephant walk

Jeff Jacoby for Senate?

by Seth Gitell

ON THE TRAIL: as candidate, not columnist?

Republicans are buzzing about a new player they'd like to see in the US Senate race against Ted Kennedy -- conservative Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby.

Jacoby delivered a stinging indictment of Kennedy in his March 27 column, "The Trashing of Jack E. Robinson." First, Jacoby dredged up the allegations Michael Kelly made against the senator in a 1990 GQ article (namely, that Kennedy employed at least one campaign staffer in the same way Bill Clinton has been accused of using state troopers when he was governor of Arkansas). Then he lambasted the Boston media for being unfair to Robinson as the Republican attempted to launch a Senate campaign. "The point isn't that Kennedys have skeletons in their closet too, or that Robinson deserves a free pass," Jacoby wrote. "It is that there is a clanging double standard. Democrats named Kennedy can be guilty of shocking transgressions and Massachusetts voters will keep electing them to term after term in the US Congress. A Kennedy's past is never deemed a bar to holding public office."

Pretty strong stuff. And Republicans in the nation's capital think that, given Jacoby's clean image and committed pursuit of a conservative agenda, the columnist himself would have been a better prospective candidate than anybody the state party establishment has put forward -- especially Robinson, who turned out to be a disaster.

"[Jacoby's] a deep thinker, whose ability to communicate is unparalleled in a state known for high intellectual octane," says one Republican operative in Washington. "His writing is on par with any Pulitzer Prize winner. On any issue dear to a conservative's heart, he speaks better than any elected official on those issues. He is unique in that he is from a religious minority, a sincere and committed family man, with vast experience in both law and journalism, and active in his community; he's everything, in short, that Ted Kennedy is not."

What makes the idea of a Jacoby candidacy plausible is that he has the pedigree you'd expect to find in a GOP contender. He worked for Ray Shamie back in the days when it looked as if the Republican businessman was going to rebuild the state party. And he's a graduate of George Washington University and the Boston University School of Law. Democratic political consultant Michael Goldman suggests that running Jacoby might not be a bad idea: "The truth of the matter is . . . Jeff's a true believer."

So what does Jacoby think? "I can't imagine that anyone in Massachusetts would be more unelectable than somebody with my political or personal profile," he says.

That's probably true. And Jacoby's biggest problem surely is that, as a working journalist, he doesn't have the financial reserves and fundraising ability necessary to run for the Senate. But there's little doubt he would make an interesting candidate.