billkeating2010.com
In late 2009, Bill Keating was looking to move on from his 12 years as district attorney for Norfolk County, but it wasn’t the 10th Congressional District he was considering at the time.
Keating made it known that if Attorney General Martha Coakley was sent to Washington to fill the seat long-held by Edward M. Kennedy, he was interested in the job.
As happened to so many in Massachusetts politics, Republican Scott Brown tossed a truck-sized monkey wrench into Keating’s planning, but the DA didn’t have to wait long for his next opportunity. In early March, six-term U.S. Rep. Bill Delahunt, whom Keating succeeded as district attorney, opened the door once again for him.
In looking at both races, Keating said he was looking for a greater opportunity to serve.
“I think we’re in one of the most important periods,” he said of the state of national affairs. “It’s going to go one way toward making some fundamental changes.”
The nature of those changes is tied to which party is successful in November. At this point, Keating said the country isn’t going forward or back. “It’s going in no direction.”
While not pleased with that lack of direction, Keating said he understands it.
“That’s what happens during difficult times … we make changes in our history,” he said. He wants to be among the voices in that change.
After changing his living arrangements to put himself in the 10th District, Keating was in the race. That move prompted some to term him a carpetbagger, but Keating has pointed out that he’s owned property in the district for more than 25 years, 10 years on Martha’s Vineyard and the last 15 in Bourne.
Keating told the Patriot this week that the central location of his home in Monument Beach made the commuting necessary for both the campaign and his job as district attorney manageable.
“I don’t know what I would have done without having that house there,” Keating said.
During the Aug. 30 forum at the Barnstable Senior Center, Keating got to his feet to tell his story, which includes the wartime service of his father and uncle. “We have to put citizenship ahead of partisanship,” the Quincy Democrat said. He promised to “fight to make sure Social Security is not attacked” and to back renewable energy projects to help reduce dependence on foreign oil.
Keating has found two issues in his opponent’s back yard through which he can separate himself. He supports Cape Wind after initially opposing it.
He said that he was giving speeches calling for less dependence on foreign oil, national security and how “we should own that industry,” and came to realize his position on Cape Wind was too narrow, and wrong.
“How can you reconcile that view and oppose it? You can’t,” Keating said this week.
He said he was glad he came to that realization before “someone in the back of the room raised their hand and asked … I didn’t have a very good answer.”
Keating has made his opposition to raising the Social Security retirement age a key distinction in the race, saying that he’s the only candidate in any party to oppose it.
“I really have a profound opposition to that on many fronts,” he said, saying that any such discussion is premature because “there is no crisis.”
He also sees it as creating a wider divide between white collar workers, who may be able to handle an extra year or two, to blue collar laborers, who he said already have a lesser life expectancy.
While a state senator, Keating sought to unseat then-Senate President William Bulger, whom he characterized as “iron-fisted.” He said he took his lumps, but it showed he’s willing to stand up for what he believes is right, despite the personal consequences.
On immigration, Keating does not support amnesty for illegal immigrants, and wants to enforce the laws that are on the books. He also believes that there needs to be a focus on enforcing laws for the businesses that employ them. He sees it as something that needs to happen at the federal, not state level, to ensure it’s uniformly applied.
He said he would not have supported the “bailout first” approach to financial reform, but recognizes some of the good that can come from the recently-passed reforms. In particular, he’s encouraged by what he sees as the preventative effects of the new consumer protection agency.
Likewise on the recently approved national health care policy. It’s not how he would have looked to do it, especially on cost containment issues, but individuals will benefit. One of the reasons he knows it didn’t go far enough is that “the insurance companies agreed too quickly.”
According to his campaign Web site, Keating would do the following:
• Fight to create jobs by supporting small businesses and eliminating the barriers to hiring more workers.
• Protect Social Security and our retirement savings from privatization schemes.
• Fight for veterans to ensure they get the educational and health benefits they have earned, including: job training, access to loans, and additional assistance to veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq.
• Vote to get the deficit under control by requiring offsets to new government spending.
• Protect the environment and create clean energy jobs in Massachusetts by investing in alternative sources of energy such as solar, wind and bio-fuels. |