Joe Kennedy to deliver Democratic response to State of the Union address
WASHINGTON – Representative Joseph P. Kennedy III, one of the Democratic Party’s rising political stars, has been tapped by top party leaders to deliver the official Democratic response to President Trump’s State of the Union address next week.
The choice thrusts the 37-year-old, three-term congressman from Brookline into the national spotlight more squarely than he has ever been before. The job will put him on national television as the face of the Democratic Party and the voice of chief Trump critic at an extraordinary moment in the country’s politics. For many Americans, it will be their first introduction to the latest Kennedy on the political scene.
The choice of Kennedy, which was confirmed by two Democratic officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity, says something about the image that the national Democratic Party is trying to project. In Kennedy, Democrats are looking toward a telegenic liberal from bright-blue Massachusetts — not to mention a famous political dynasty — to articulate the deep and increasingly-bitter objections many Americans have to the current president.
