RichardHowe.com – Voices from Lowell & Beyond

Music! Music! Music!

Music! Music! Music!

By Leo Racicot

The very first music concert I attended was at Freedomland, an amusement park in The Bronx. My sister, Diane and I, were in White Plains, New York visiting our aunt, uncle and cousins for three weeks in the summer of 1962. One of the acts we saw at Freedomland was The Chad Mitchell Trio. One of the members of that folk group was John Denver though Denver hadn’t yet become John Denver. If I close my eyes, I can still see the fresh-scrubbed college look of these guys singing their hearts out in three-part harmony.

The very first rock/blues I saw was James Montgomery Band on North Campus just outside Costello Gym. Joe and I went together. It must have been about 1970. Up till then, we’d only heard that type of blues roots music on the radio. Hearing it performed live was a thrill. We felt modern and part of our generation. The Band continues to tour in 2026.

It was around this same time that I fell in love with singer Judy Collins; I’d picked up her album, Who Knows Where the Time Goes in a Stuart’s record bin — and listened and listened in my bedroom, the sun and a light summer breeze lifting the curtains in the window as Judy’s crystalline clear soprano lifted itself to the sky. Her music captured me as has no other and I’ve lost count of the number of I’ve been blessed to see her live in many different venues. I was so taken with her, I’d bring friends with me to hear her: David McKean out in Tanglewood at Collins’ Berkshire Music Festival performance in 1968. Joe, at Hampton Beach Casino around the same time. I’ll always remember seeing her at Suffolk Downs; we audience sat on the grounds, the smell of horse dung permeating the air as Collins, lovely vision in prairie dress and guitar, sang, her eyes closed in reverie through most of the concert. A night of pure magic. Judy, at age 87, continues to tour the world, her pristine, ethereal tones miraculously still reaching for the heights.

The great Joni Mitchell was a favorite in those days, too. I listened endlessly to her many hits. When it was announced she’d be participating in the Boston Concerts on the Common Series in 1983, I talked Diane into coming along. (I was forever dragging my poor sister to concerts of performers she wasn’t a fan of, especially if their gigs proved to her why she didn’t care for them. This concert was the one that’s become notorious in music history; Mitchel was not in a good humor that night; she stopped the music more than once to scold an inattentive audience and sang only a couple of numbers before storming off the stage. After a long absence, she was coaxed back but only made it through a couple of more songs before storming off again. I don’t think the concert lasted more than half-an-hour. Diane was incensed when the announcer stated unequivocally that “No refunds will be given”. This bothered Diane no end and years later, whenever Mitchell’s voice came on the car radio, Diane would rail, “That was an outrage; they should have given us our money back!”  In 2000, Joe and I decided we’d give Joni another chance. We saw her at Boston’s Seaport Pavilion. She was older, her voice richer, smokier and well-worth our worship. And — she didn’t flee the stage once, stayed for more than the standard two-hour concert time. An unforgettable evening…

I’ve been around a long time; I can’t possibly list here all the singers and bands I’ve seen.  Some of the more memorable ones come to mind….

I’ve had a lifetime of adoration for Julie Andrews ever since I saw her in The Sound of Music when it first came out in 1965. So indelibly did she captivate me that I walked downtown to The RKO Keith Theater a dozen times to watch that movie. So, when, in 1987, I saw she was to appear in person at New York’s Westbury Music Fair (Andrews never appeared too often, if at all, in person), I didn’t hesitate, bought a ticket on impulse. More than a few people over the years have been skeptical (if not downright disbelieving) that I traveled from Boston to Westbury to see Julie Andrews in concert in a raging blizzard. They also doubted that an international supernova like Andrews would appear in a small circle-in-the-round theater on Long Island. But appear she did. It was November, 1987 and though the snow was looking ominous, I was determined to see the divine Julie in person, even if it meant taking my life in my hands. I would go anywhere for her. And did! The concert was, to say, a thrill. To be able to see this superstar in-the-flesh, not two feet away from me was extraordinary, to say the least. In a gown made of the finest silver, Andrews sang all her hits. One number stuck with me all these years; her rendition of Lerner and Loewe’s Come to Me, Bend to Me from Brigadoon.

I don’t think I’ll ever get over the first time I saw Bette Midler perform on stage. Never before or since have I seen such energy displayed. She was a tornado of performance; The Divine Miss M sang, danced, twirled, even conquered Hawaiian bolo balls with aplomb. That girl never sat still for one second except to stop and sing a heartbreaking ballad or two. In fact, in those early days, pre-fame, even when theater venues weren’t even a third full, Midler worked her tail off, gave it her all, 150 percent, as if she was performing at Madison Square Garden. As with Judy Collins, I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve seen her over the years. After that first concert, the real shock was seeing her in the lobby, post-show. She appeared as this very tiny lady, hardly five feet tall, dressed primly, the archetype of a 1950s librarian, pill box on her head, ribboned cameo at her throat, not a bit like the tsunami I’d just seen decimate an audience a few minutes before.

Equally riveting was Nina Simone at Symphony Hall in 2000. I’d always liked Simone’s musical stylings but wasn’t prepared for the full Nina Simone in-person experience. To call her performance intense would be an understatement of the highest order. Her stage presence was theatrical, extremely moving, spiritual. I left the hall in a state of ecstasy, floated home on a cloud of Joy.

You don’t hear too much about them happening anymore but in the 1970s and 1980s, it was common for a performer to stage a pop-up, impromptu appearance around Boston. These were unscheduled gigs, unannounced until the last minute. If you were lucky, you’d be in the right place at the right time. I saw the great Richie Havens at The Prudential Center, seated outside some shops, singing his heart out in his trademark bass tones. I caught Cindy Lauper & Arlo Gurthie on The Esplanade, again just out-of-the-blue. Two dynamic performers, as the song goes playing real good for free.

The folk blues singer/civil rights activist, Odetta, was a favorite of mine from the 1960s when I first heard that magnificent voice, a voice coming at you like a locomotive. I saw her at Harvard’s intimate Paine Hall, at Newport Folk Festival a couple of times during which the Zoom lens on my camera captured a favorite photo I’ve kept for years. One cold, wintry night strolling around Harvard Square, I heard a familiar voice pouring out of Club Passim. I said, “I know that voice”. When I peeked in the window, there was Odetta, her power filling the room, knocking the walls down.

Strictly speaking, it wasn’t exactly a concert The incomparable Vanessa Redgrave gave at Boston’s Orpheum Theater In April, 1982. I attended a pro-Palestinian fundraiser featuring Redgrave in a one-woman show. She was riveting. No one else was on-the-bill but from my seat, I could see a man hovering in the wings and said to myself, “That fellow looks like Tennessee Williams”, never in a million years thinking it could be the playwright himself. But it was! At the end of her program, Redgrave said, “Now, we have a very, very special guest speaker. Mr. Tennessee Williams”. Williams advanced to center stage and read from one of his essays the subject of which was the freedom of the artist to speak out about political and social causes and concerns. I was over-the-moon, as was everyone there that night. This story continues — I was filing out of the theater when I ran into my friend, Jane, who worked for the theater management. She said, “Would you like to meet Miss Redgrave?” and pulled me by the hand into the wings. Redgrave was BIG, gave me and others a very lusty, masculine “How do?” handshake. It was then I heard someone say to Williams, “So brave of you to do this, Tennessee” to which the tiny, little writer who had appeared so shy on stage just moments before replied, “Let’s see what kind of blankety-blank mess I’ve gotten myself into this time!”

Rosemary Clooney. The name still resonates. One of the enduring singers to emerge from the Big Band era. I grew up on her music; my parents and relatives were older so that type of music was always on the radio, the record player. When, in 1993, Rosemary came to North Shore Music Circus in Beverly, I was hot to see her. By that time, she was quite large. She was also quite frail. She performed her two sets perched on a stool, center stage. The voice was as strong as it had ever been, singular, sassy. The phrasing as perfect as when she’d started out decades before. One of the great voices. She delighted the audience with three encores. In return, they gave her five standing ovations. They didn’t want to say goodbye.

Whenever I liked an entertainer and his/her work, I’d go to great lengths to see them perform in-person. I was single and anyway, none of my friends shared my musical tastes. I could never get anyone to go with me anywhere so — off I’d go, near or far, to see someone whose work brought me joy. I’ve seen Bette Midler in New York, Las Vegas, San Antonio, Toronto, Providence & Miami, Judy Collins in practically every state in the nation, made my way through a raging blizzard to see Julie Andrews. But for me, the most memorable was the time I, a very green, very shy, scared young man went all the way to New York City to see/hear the truly mesmerizing Miss Peggy Lee. When I got off the bus at Port Authority, I made my way (only God knows how) to the Midtown address listed on my ticket and ended up, to my dismay, in a dark, dirty alleyway. Newspapers and other debris were flying around the windy passage, and I thought, “This is a good place to get murdered or mugged.” The only door I saw was a corroded, old door with a hand-written sign that read ENTER HERE. Nobody else was in the alley with me, no long line of ticketholders, no ticket takers, nobody to ask anything of, no nuthin’. Hmmmm. As The Divine Miss M used to say, “I’m not making this up, you know!” I don’t mind telling you I was one Nervous Nelly as I walked up to the door, hesitantly pulled the handle and yanked. I know now that New York’s many dark alleyway doors open up onto a wonder world of surprises. But this was the first time I experienced this big city phenomenon. For, what opened to me when I flung wide the door was a blinding World of White. Everything was white! The supper club was white. The tablecloths were white. A white cloud of tulle hung in the supper club sky, white lights twinkling throughout it. Peggy, herself, when she emerged, was white. Her hair was white. Her gown. The frames of her sunglasses — white. I thought I died and went to White Paradise. Suddenly, a hush fell over the club. The lights went down. The orchestra went up. Peggy Lee began to purr Fever into her white mic. Peggy was White Hot!

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Arlo Guthrie

Cyndi Lauper

James Montgomery Band

Joni Mitchell: Boston Concerts on the Common

Judy Collins in 1968

Julie Andrews

Odetta at Newport Folk Festival

Peggy Lee

Tennessee Williams

The Chad Mitchell Trio

Venessa Redgrave

Seen & Heard: Vol. 32

A weekly report on things I’ve read, heard and seen since last Wednesday. 

Article: “AI’s Market Dominance comes With a Warning” by Jeff Sommer, New York Times, July 12, 2026 – This is the “Strategies” column in the Business section. Despite relatively high inflation driven by tariffs and the war with Iran, the stock market is booming. Most experts attribute this to hopes for artificial intelligence. “Huge sums being funneled into A.I. infrastructure have bolstered returns . . .” The risk is that if those bets turn out to be wrong, the drop in the stock market will be severe. “If the enormous expectations for A.I. aren’t met, those remarkable portfolio returns could suddenly disappear.” The author’s advice is to widely diversify your investments which is difficult given how much everything in the US and around the world seems tied to A.I. My lesson in the wisdom of diversifying came with the collapse of the housing bubble in 2008. I didn’t have a lot of money to invest but half was in an Index 500 stock mutual fund and half was in bank CDs. The return on the stock dwarfed the bank interest and I kicked myself for not shifting that money somewhere with a better return. Then the bottom dropped out of the economy. Overnight, I lost half the value of my stock fund while I still had the same amount of cash in the bank. True, the stock has regained its value since then and has appreciated considerably, but there is no guarantee that will happen. 

Article: “US Eases Rules in Nuclear Deal for Saudi Arabia” by David E. Sanger, et al, New York Times, July 23, 2026.The announcement of a deal selling advanced nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia by the US, technology that might allow that country acquiring a nuclear weapon received so much negative attention that the President added new conditions to the already signed agreement, sabotaging it in the process. My first point: this illustrates why countries will be so hesitant to negotiate anything with the U.S. unless absolutely necessary. Why make concessions to reach an agreement when the agreement is likely to be abrogated by the President if it is poorly received? Second point: Why are U.S. leaders (of both parties) so indebted to Saudi Arabia? After all, Osama bin Laden was Saudi as were 15 of the 19 hijackers in the 9-11 attacks. I’m not saying we should be overtly hostile to Saudi Arabia, but neither should we treat that country as our closest and most reliable ally. 

Article: “He is Helping Trump Reshape Washington” by Zachary Small in New York Times, July 27, 2026. The subheading for this article is “Matthew Taylor, an artist and political strategist, is a cultural czar of sorts for the White House.” I had never heard of this guy but this article portrays him as the moving force behind much of the whitewashing of American history emanating from the White House. Enough said. 

Substack: “When Allen Met Tony, Revisited” by Robert Sullivan, August 1, 2026. A Chelmsford native who formerly wrote for Sports Illustrated, Time and LIFE, Bob Sullivans shares wonderful longform prose pieces with us for free via his Substack newsletter. A recent piece recalled his experience interviewing on consecutive evenings the singer Tony Bennett and the poet Allen Ginsberg and the connections between the two. It’s a wonderful, detail-rich piece of writing that was a pleasure to read.

Article: “What Mount Auburn Cemetery teaches the living” by Joan Wickersham. Boston Globe, July 31, 2026. This essay on the Op-Ed page is by a frequent visitor and neighbor of this famous garden style cemetery in Cambridge. She explains that whether you are interested in gardening, nature, history, biography or architecture, there is something for you in this cemetery. I feel the same every time I visit Lowell Cemetery which is modeled on Mount Auburn. When Lowell Cemetery first opened in 1842, there were no public parks in this region. On Sunday’s residents would come to Lowell Cemetery to enjoy the beautiful natural setting and to have a picnic. While I haven’t seen anyone dining within the cemetery recently, there are many who routinely enjoy it. If you’ve never been, you should go someday, park your car and just wander around to soak everything in.

Mother Earth Grumbles

Mother Earth Grumbles – PIP #111

By Louise Peloquin

     “Peeks into the Past” #11 and #54 were a sampling of a local newspaper’s coverage of climate concerns. (1)

     As the summer of 2026 is punctuated by horrifying images of extreme weather all over the globe, these two stories seem timely albeit notably different. The climate change referred to below is not attributed to human activity.

L’ETOILE – January 2, 1926

VOLCANOES ARE WARMING UP ALASKA

__________

Observers say the new eruptions will produce a permanent radical change in temperature. — Warmer in Alaska.

__________

     Anchorage, Alaska. The earthquake two days ago, followed by yesterday’s smoke and vapor from North America’s highest summit, 20,300-foot Mount McKinley, indicated renewed volcanic activity. (2) This is part of a series of widely-observed volcanic phenomena which will cause permanent radical temperature changes in Alaska’s southern region.

     Since the November 11th eruption of Mount Shishaldin in the Aleutian Islands, 300 miles south-west of McKinley, the region’s longtime residents stated that they had never felt such mild, springlike temperatures in November and December. They pointed out that ordinarily frozen watercourses have remained open and that green vegetation has replaced snow on grasslands.

     On a large surface 

     The affected surface extends over many hundreds of square miles, along the Cook inlet north-west of Mount McKinley and far to the north of the Susitna river valley. It was 28 degrees in Anchorage on Christmas Day while 0 is the usual temperature.

     Mount McKinley’s smoke seems to indicate that Alaska’s volcanic activity is moving towards the north. Until now, it has occurred south of the Alaskan mountains. McKinley is in the north of this mountain range. The strongest recent eruption occurred in 1912 when Mount Katmai’s eruption widened its summit to three miles in diameter and gave birth to Ten Thousand Smokes Valley. A year ago, Mount Pavlov erupted and last month, so did Mount Shishaldin. Each one of these eruptions was accompanied by earthquakes and climate changes. Since the eruption of Shishaldin, heat within Cook inlet waters has been melting large glaciers.

     Observers believe that north-bound subterranean fires increase temperatures below the seabed which, like the Gulf Stream and the Kuroshio current, spread heat. Geologists consider that in the past, similar forces submerged the peninsula between North America and Asia and, although no considerable changes occurred at the time, it is now believed that Alaska will experience warmer winters in the future.

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L’ETOILE – January 8, 1926

Vesuvius Is Not Dangerous

__________

The eruption begun these past days is normal and is a “safety valve” for the villages around the mountain.

__________

     Naples, 8. – Vesuvius is rumbling and spewing smoke and lava, albeit in small quantities. The night before last, this phenomenon amused a large crowd of foreigners gazing at fire leaping from the crater and ash covering the mountain. The present eruption is simply an ordinary one for Vesuvius.

     “It is one of the usual occurrences which take place about three times a year,” Professor Maladra, director of the Vesuvius Observatory, said yesterday. “Last year in April, an exceptional flow of incandescent lava spilled from the crater.”

     The present small eruption, instead of being dangerous, is a “safety valve” for the villages around Vesuvius because an eruption close to the cone allows the incandescent matter to pour out. Otherwise, it could blanket the entire mountain. At the moment, no risk for a large, significant eruption, like that of 1906, is expected. The activity of the volcano, begun yesterday, will probably only last for a few days. And then, Vesuvius will return to its normal state. (3)

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1) PIP #11 – https://richardhowe.com/2023/12/11/an-eye-on-the-sky/

PIP # 54 – https://richardhowe.com/2025/01/21/snow-was-general-all-over-lowell/

2) Prospector William A. Dickey named the mountain in 1896 in honor of William McKinley who was elected president of the United States later that year.

In 1975, the Alaskan government officially adopted Denali, the traditional name used among Alaska Native peoples.

3) Translations by Louise Peloquin.

Snarky versus Markey by Marjorie Arons-Barron

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog.

Bay State Democrats have arranged themselves in a circular firing squad, leaving voters to choose between a senator who is old (80) but effective, or a congressman who is younger (47)– and gratuitously snide. Monday night’s televised debate between incumbent Senator Ed Markey and 6th District Congressman Seth Moulton was a contentious, unpleasant exchange that revealed few ideological or substantive differences and raised a fundamental question about what, exactly, a generational change in this race might mean for Massachusetts.

The question beneath the debate was whether Moulton had a coherent case for replacing Markey. On policy, the two agree on most issues; where they differ — health care financing, the pace of progressive change — the distinctions are matters of timing and mechanism rather than fundamental direction. Moulton’s legislative record, while respectable, notably on veterans’ and mental health issues, is thin compared to Markey’s decades of accomplishments, especially on consumer, energy and climate issues.

Moulton’s own record carries vulnerabilities: a public apology, offered during the debate itself, for 2024 comments on transgender athletes that drew enormous backlash in Massachusetts; persistent questions about his investments in defense companies while sitting on the House Armed Services Committee, where he exercises oversight of those very industries; and a career whose national ambitions — a 2020 presidential run, a challenge to Nancy Pelosi’s leadership — have periodically drawn attention away from the constituents he represents, the same charge he leveled at Markey.

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The strength of the generational change argument depends on the office. For executive positions — governor, president, district attorney — where leadership style and decision-making drive outcomes, it carries real weight. For the United States Senate, it cuts the other way.

More than any other major elected body in the country, the Senate explicitly rewards seniority, institutional relationships, and procedural expertise accumulated over decades. When a senior senator retires or loses, that accumulated leverage largely disappears overnight.

Replacing a senior incumbent on grounds of age alone, when the incumbent remains engaged and effective, costs a state institutional influence and, typically, federal resources. That tradeoff might make sense if the senator were disengaged, rarely initiating legislation, or struggling to communicate. None of those conditions describe Markey’s record or his performance Monday night.

If Moulton were a successful challenger, his institutional seniority-enhanced powers would presumably grow over time, but it doesn’t replace what the state loses on day one.  What does Massachusetts do in the immediate term?

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A challenger with a narrow margin in policy differences and a much thinner legislative record faces an obvious strategic problem: the affirmative case is hard to make. What fills the vacuum is what we saw Monday night.

The greatest takeaway from the debate was Moulton’s attempt to smear Markey with an unsubstantiated connection to convicted child predator Jeffrey Epstein. Pressed for specifics, Moulton went full innuendo. He alluded to a meeting Markey had with a lobbyist representing Epstein. According to PolitiFact, what actually happened is this: Markey met with lobbyist Bob Crowe about a matter related to the son of the then-president of Senegal — legitimate foreign-relations business for the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Africa. Crowe later forwarded details of the meeting to Epstein. A Crowe colleague also included Epstein on an invitation to a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee lunch at which Markey was among a group of senators listed as “special guests.” There is no evidence Markey ever knew Epstein nor had any connection to either the Senegal matter or the fundraiser. Markey — who has been one of the loudest voices demanding the full release of the Epstein files — flatly denied ever meeting Epstein, said he had nothing to do with him, and called Moulton’s tactics reprehensible. PolitiFact found no basis for the broader insinuation.

What Moulton achieved was a distraction from any substantive, positive contrasts available to him. What he sacrificed was something harder to recover: the credibility of a candidate who had positioned himself as the younger but all-grown-up alternative. The attack belongs to a recognizable tradition in American politics — one that runs from Joseph McCarthy’s “I have here a list of names” to Lee Atwater’s Willie Horton ad to the social media era’s weaponization of the Epstein files themselves. The common engine in each case is the same: a kernel of technically-adjacent fact, an accusation left implicit so that the audience fills it in, and deniability intact for the attacker if the smear is challenged. McCarthy’s lists couldn’t be examined. The Horton ad was run by an independent PAC so the Bush campaign could claim clean hands, even as campaign manager Lee Atwater boasted he would make Willie Horton Dukakis’s running mate. Moulton’s version — “your name appears repeatedly, I’m not going to get into all the details” — follows the same blueprint: insinuate, decline to specify, let “Epstein” and “Markey” sit in the same sentence and do the work. The Justice Department has itself noted that names appear in the Epstein files “in a wide variety of contexts,” that many are witnesses, staff members, and people with no connection to his crimes, and that no one named in the files beyond Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell has been charged with anything. What Moulton deployed as a weapon is part of a document release the DOJ has explicitly warned cannot be read as an accusation list — and that Markey had already been demanding be made public.

This is not the first time Moulton has reached for this tool. In the 2014 Democratic primary, running against incumbent Democratic Congressman John Tierney, Moulton pressed the fact that Tierney’s wife had been convicted of tax evasion related to her brother’s offshore gambling operation — an operation Tierney maintained he knew nothing about. The House Ethics Committee investigated and in 2013 unanimously voted to take no action against Tierney. What was notable was Moulton’s willingness a year later to attach a congressman to a family member’s crime in a race where the underlying policy differences between the two candidates were similarly narrow. It worked: Tierney lost. The tactic of connecting an opponent to wrongdoing through a third-party association — with plausible deniability about how far the charge actually extends — is, for Moulton, a proven instrument. Monday night it looked less like improvisation than repertoire.

Whether it works twice is what the September 1 primary will answer. In 2014, the target was a low-profile, serious, workhorse incumbent weakened by a genuine ethical cloud. In 2026, the target is a high-profile and resilient 80-year-old senator with a formidable legislative record, a long career free from scandal or public wrongdoing, whose clear denial about any Epstein links is unequivocally supported by PolitiFact. The attack in 2014 was not effectively contradicted. In 2026 it contradicts itself — deployed against a senator who had already demanded the release of the very documents being weaponized against him.

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Moulton is a decorated Marine with expertise on defense, national security, and transportation issues. He has rightly criticized Democrats for not discussing politically difficult topics, asserting they should be willing to acknowledge nuance in policy debates. Markey has been faulted by moderates for being too doctrinaire liberal, repeatedly taking agenda-setting leadership roles on causes dear to progressives, especially as a national leader on the existential issue of climate change. He joyfully touted endorsements he’s received from Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Ayana Pressley. Moulton is hard to define ideologically: is he a national security Democrat? A centrist progressive?  Unlike most of the other generational contests this year, the younger candidate here is clearly the more moderate choice–– but in the debate he frequently avoided using thoughtful nuance to distinguish his views from Markey’s. Did he think it was the wrong time to discuss the subtleties of difficult topics?

The two candidates agree on most policy questions. Where Markey genuinely shone during the debate was on legislative accomplishment. He cited specific dollar figures for Massachusetts industries and communities he has helped, most dramatically in renewable energy. Against that record, Moulton’s signature achievement — his role in establishing the national mental health crisis hotline — is real and meaningful, but thin as the centerpiece of a case against Markey’s long history of legislative success.

On health care, Markey is one of the original sponsors of single-payer Medicare for All. Moulton supports a public option — “Medicare for All Who Want It.” However idealistic Medicare for All may be as a long-term goal, the transformation faces significant financial and political obstacles. Moulton’s approach, by contrast, may be too incremental to address the urgency many Massachusetts voters feel. Viewers could have benefited from a more serious discussion of how each would make health care both affordable and accessible; they got neither candidate’s best thinking on the question.

Their discussion of healthcare, however, indirectly addressed Moulton’s central rationale for challenging Markey: that it’s time for generational change, the idea that Massachusetts will benefit from new, younger representation in the Senate.  Markey directly confronted the question of what Massachusetts gains by replacing him when he noted that, if Democrats retake the Senate majority, he (Markey) would become chair of the subcommittee dealing with health care, a position with direct and immediate power over legislative outcomes. Even in the minority, as ranking member, Markey’s seniority provides substantial powers. That is a specific, verifiable advantage that no freshman senator, however bright and energetic, can replicate at any time in a first term or possibly for years to come.

Perhaps their most revealing policy contrast–– which never came up during the debate––is on cryptocurrency. Moulton voted in July 2025 for both the GENIUS Act and the CLARITY Act — the first major federal crypto legislation ever passed — framing his vote as a matter of regulatory clarity and American competitiveness. Markey voted against the bills and has spent years approaching cryptocurrency from the opposite direction entirely: as an environmental and consumer threat. In 2022, he introduced legislation requiring EPA to study crypto mining’s energy consumption and mandate greenhouse gas reporting from large mining operations. Markey argued that bitcoin’s incentive structure demands ever-increasing electricity use at precisely the moment the country needs to use it more efficiently. The two votes represent a genuine philosophical divide — Moulton sees digital finance as an innovation race to be won, Markey sees it as a climate, consumer and financial liability to be managed— and it is, arguably, a cleaner ideological distinction than anything the debate produced on other matters. Organizations aligned with the crypto industry have rated Moulton as strongly supportive. They see Markey as a crypto skeptic, targeted for replacement.

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Markey has now publicly committed to this being his final term. Massachusetts has a deep bench of potential replacements — including several House members already positioned with their own congressional seniority — who benefit from knowing an open seat is coming. A future race without an incumbent to displace is more likely to be competitive, more likely to draw the strongest candidates, and more likely to produce a successor with a genuine mandate rather than one, if Moulton wins, whose first act was a fratricidal primary against a senator with a praiseworthy 50-year congressional record.

Ed Markey, freed from re-election pressure, with full seniority and committee power, can arguably accomplish more than a freshman building from scratch. The pledge not to run again doesn’t weaken the case for Markey. Deployed correctly, it strengthens it.