ver the past four decades, there were probably 100 or more Republicans who in some fashion entertained the notion of trying to topple Ted Kennedy.
A shrewd one, like Joe Malone, ran against the reigning Bay State heavyweight champ as a dry run for a successful run later at statewide office. A rich one, like Mitt Romney six years ago, took the rubber band off the bankroll after being persuaded Old Theodore was ripe for the plucking.
The most popular Republican in the past 30 years since Frank Sargent was Bill Weld, who pined after a Senate seat. But he took his shot against the junior incumbent, John Kerry, and fell short. Weld understood that knocking off Teddy is as close as it gets to a political impossibility.
An up-and-coming young Republican approached me several Senate terms back asking what I thought of his chances vs. the Mahatma. I began along these lines: ''You'll start off with 40 percent of the vote. And the good news is, that won't cost you a cent, because Teddy's generally a 60-40 proposition around here.'' He brightened.
''The next 1 percent of the vote will cost you, say, a million. The next percent after that, say $2 million. You raise another $3 million, that gets you to maybe 43 percent. Spend another $10 mil, and you'll never get beyond 45.'' He nodded, he didn't disagree, and he didn't run.
After the Romney scare, Clan Kennedy vowed never to be caught napping again. Romney is now capably running Salt Lake City's Olympic effort. But the Republican Party locally, under orders from Washington to run somebody against Teddy, pulled off the political equivalent of diving headfirst off the high board into an empty swimming pool. They came up with a Connecticut businessman with an uncrushable ego, a suspect bank account, and a rap sheet. Only a standup comedian could do justice to Jack E. Robinson. The saga of this sad-sack candidacy is not to be believed. Getting nicked in a multicar accident while talking to a radio station about Cellucci's abandoning him was the clincher for Jack E.'s Bad News Bear bid.
What is most instructive about this hilarity is the evidence of reversion by the GOP to the Dark Ages of the Dukakis era, when Republicans had similar difficulty recruiting serious candidates who could stand up to the kind of scrutiny a voracious media pack applies to those who would rule. I forbear from ticking off the litany of local embarrassments; there should be a statute of limitations on embarrassment.
The man who is most shamed by the latest debacle is Governor Argeo Paul Cellucci, the Amerigo Vespucci of the Corner Office, an explorer of unquenchable curiosity, now safely distanced from the Commonwealth and the rampant skepticism hereabouts. Governor Smallbore is off in China on yet another trade mission, as far away as he can get from the latest debacle. The guv was on that plane faster than you could say ''Jack E. Robinson.''
Debris never looks as bad from 37,000 feet. Clutching his guide book in one hand and his plane ticket in the other, our own Marco Polo fled, trusting that it will be less of an embarrassment when he returns.
Governor Befuddled depends more and more frequently upon the intervention of outside forces to straighten out his dysfunctional administration. Since being elected in his own right, Mr. Weld's butler seems not to have a handle on the job. His increasing irrelevance to anything of import in the Legislature, plus the Massport booze cruise, the Logan runway flop, the Big Dig fiasco, his ducking a confrontation with his derisive Big Dig boss, the inept attempt to blame the all-Democratic delegation for congressional skepticism about the mammoth cost overruns, and the regular parade of miniscandals among his underlings all undermine public confidence.
Even Cellucci's natural allies in the tax-phobic business community blanch at his reckless tax-cutting referendum scheme, disowned even by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Association. Good times and a bulletproof economy reelected Cellucci by 3 percent, but nothing can camouflage the rickety innards of this joke of an administration.
Republican prospects here, so expansive for a time under Weld, have shrunk again to pygmy proportions. The nomination for Senate was a chance for a bright new face to make the statewide rounds, hitting every broadcast outlet and editorial board, advancing an agenda and a philosophy, winning a respectful hearing, laying the groundwork for subsequent success. National newspapers, the TV networks, foreign journalists, and Republican money from afar would have welcomed a respectable challenger, in the way Malone and Romney were given a hearing.
Of course it is a kamikaze run. But you invest in something like that for a payoff later. The national GOP wants to keep Teddy tied down here, not running all over America raising money and hell against GOP candidates elsewhere. And the GOP's moneymen would bankroll a respectable candidacy here, no matter what the odds. But that required a party leader locally to recruit a candidate who was housebroken, a task clearly beyond Cellucci.
David Nyhan is a Globe columnist.
