his is not 1994, when Edward M. Kennedy seemed vulnerable, if only briefly, in his reelection campaign against Republican Mitt Romney.
No, the 68-year-old Democrat this year is ambling at a leisurely pace toward Nov. 7, when he will be returned for another six-year term to the United States Senate, extending a 38-year incumbency that is already a Massachusetts record.
For some inexplicable reason, however, Kennedy is balking at a public debate during this low-wattage campaign season.
The senior senator should not get a pass from the electoral process merely because he faces a mixed bag of opponents, including Jack E. Robinson III, so feckless a candidate that leaders of his Republican Party have repudiated him.
''The senator is focused on the Senate session,'' said Will Keyser, his spokesman in Washington. ''When the Senate is finished for the year, decisions about the campaign will be made at that point.''
The Senate's targeted adjournment date is Oct. 6, he said. That will leave 32 days until the election.
What's the problem here?
Kennedy can't possibly be worried about his reelection prospects. He could stumble into a televised debate with a bag over his head, spout gibberish, and still win reelection easily.
Does Kennedy think he's earned a year off? He can't be inconvenienced to spend an hour or two explaining/defending what he's done during the past six years or the 32 years before that?
The guy has a hall-of-fame legislative record. There are plenty of folks who disagree with his liberal stands on issues, but he has been undeniably effective, even bipartisan, during an era of relative stalemate in Washington.
Hey, he could show up and read excerpts of ''Edward M. Kennedy: A Biography,'' the exhaustive tome by Adam Clymer, New York Times reporter and George W. Bush's favorite major-league body orifice.
The issue is not whether Kennedy should submit to a debate; he should. It's with whom and how often.
He should debate Robinson, loose bolts and all, and Carla Howell, the Libertarian. They are the nominees of statutorily recognized parties in Massachusetts.
In fact, of the two, Howell is running the better campaign. As of this week, she reports raising $567,779 (Kennedy has about $4.2 million in the bank). She has a crisp slogan (''Small Government is Beautiful''), credible endorsers (tax-cut tigress Barbara Anderson, EMC Corp. founder Dick Egan), and real, if politically incorrect, constituencies, like gun owners and home-schoolers.
Meanwhile, Robinson, who once claimed he would raise $7 million or more, recorded only $480 in individual donations in his June 30 report to the Federal Election Commission. That figure is now ''around $20,000,'' he told us this week, plus ''a couple hundred thousand'' of his own money. He has no campaign staff. His ''headquarters'' is a Web site. It's quite an operation.
The other candidates in November are political exotics: radical abortion foe Philip Lawler of the Constitution Party; Dale E. Friedgen of the Natural Law Party, who in 1996 tallied 1 percent of the vote in a 3rd Congressional District race; and Philip Hyde, an erstwhile Republican and now self-styled leader of the Timesizing not Downsizing Party, who was shellacked twice in 8th Congressional District races. Their presence might be entertaining, but they do not meet any conceivable viability threshold. They would be a distraction in a debate.
Howell has been needling Kennedy with a ''Where's Teddy?'' taunt. Kennedy's not breaking a sweat, but he's not hiding either. Howell claimed Kennedy hadn't been to Western Massachusetts ''for a long time,'' but he actually made five stops in Berkshire County on Aug. 2, his schedule shows.
Of course, he then took a month off from in-state appearances until a busy Labor Day that included rallying with striking electrical workers outside Raytheon Co. in Andover. In the ensuing 20 days, Kennedy appeared in Massachusetts at 12 public events held on six different days. He will be in Framingham and Gloucester tomorrow, Boston and Cambridge on Monday.
With such a light schedule, Kennedy has plenty of time for a debate or two.
