Steve Pemberton blasts ‘entrenched’ powers supporting Markey and Kennedy on his way out of Senate race
The New Bedford-raised businessman says Democratic insiders "forced consultants off of my campaign, and then changed their tune" when Kennedy entered the race.
Steve Pemberton isn’t leaving the Senate race quietly.
The Massachusetts businessman announced Monday that he is ending his Democratic primary campaign for Sen. Ed Markey’s seat, ripping the “entrenched” power and alleged hypocrisy of the party’s establishment on his way out the door.
Pemberton’s exit reduces the field of candidates to three: Markey, Rep. Joe Kennedy III, and attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan. The New Bedford native entered the race in July — more than a month before Kennedy launched his high-profile primary bid — pledging to advocate for the “unseen” and address structural inequalities, citing his own life experience as a biracial foster child who became a successful businessman and author.
“But this Senate race will not be the path for me to help make that change,” he wrote in a statement Monday.
https://www.facebook.com/PembertonForMA/posts/1923268314485287
Pemberton said his campaign raised nearly $500,000 in less than three months. However, in both veiled and direct references to Markey and Kennedy, he said his effort “ran into an impenetrable wall of legacy and birthright – of incumbency and connections – that so often has stifled and blocked diverse and urgent voices from succeeding in the political arena.”
“The barriers placed before anyone attempting to take on entrenched power are in so many cases too towering and too irremovable to overcome,” Pemberton said.
Following the news that Kennedy might enter the Senate race, early polls placed Pemberton’s support in single digits, more than a year away from the 2020 primary election.
In his statement, Pemberton went on to scathingly accuse the Democratic establishment of favoring incumbents at the expense of the party’s espoused values. He cited a policy by party leaders to ban political consultants who worked with primary challengers and the recent move by the Markey and Kennedy campaigns to swear off corporate PAC donations (after previously accepting them).
“They are bolstered by state and federal party bosses who privately blacklist anyone attempting to aid an insurgent campaign while publicly espousing the importance of diversity and inclusivity,” Pemberton wrote. “They are supported by a campaign finance system that allows incumbents to hoard millions of dollars in special interest PAC money — right up to the point where they ‘see the light’ and conveniently embrace campaign finance reform for short-term political advantage while sitting comfortably on their bloated war chests. And they are protected by the insiders who criticized me for breaking the party ‘rule’ of challenging an incumbent, forced consultants off of my campaign, and then changed their tune when Congressman Kennedy, in unprecedented fashion, entered into the race. The message, delivered to me, in word and in deed was abundantly clear: those same rules did not apply to him.”
Highlighting the contrast between himself and Markey and Kennedy — a 73-year-old lawmaker in Washington, D.C., for four-and-a-half decades and the 39-year-old scion of a familial political dynasty, respectively — Pemberton wrote that many citizens “walk through the world with the scars and the voids of a life forever altered” by failed policies.
“To simply empathize with those experiences is no longer enough,” he said. “The Democratic Party will have to find a way to fully embrace those voices rather than deny them because those lives, often unseen, still have value and they should have a place in our public discourse. But until we really challenge this rigged system that favors wealth, longevity and legacy, the public will be denied true choice in the voting booth and will be forced to pick between subtlety different shades of the same political establishment candidates.”
Pemberton, who recently moved to Framingham, said he would spend the upcoming weeks thinking about what’s next for his future — political or otherwise. In his statement Monday, Pemberton said that he and his wife, Tonya, still believe that “different perspectives and more urgent voices” are needed in Washington, D.C., and on issues of climate change, gun violence, and health care. With an open primary race underway for Kennedy’s current congressional seat in the nearby 4th District, a campaign spokeswoman declined to elaborate on what Pemberton’s political future might entail.
“I will never stop believing that everyone in Massachusetts deserves a chance in the world,” Pemberton wrote Monday, quoting the name of his autobiographical book, “A Chance in the World,” which was also adapted into a movie.
In statements Monday, Pemberton’s three Senate primary opponents expressed gratitude for his short-lived campaign’s contribution to the race, even echoing the former candidate’s critique of the status quo.
“His platform of lived experience reflects a wellspring of compassion and a dedication to the needs of those whose voices are too often missing from public debate and policymaking,” Markey said of Pemberton’s campaign in a statement Monday afternoon. “His candidacy is a testimony to his personal achievements, and a reminder of what is possible in the face of adversity. Steve has a powerful voice, and we will all benefit from his continued leadership in public service. I wish him the best in all of his future endeavors.”
Kennedy also thanked Pemberton for casting a light on issues of social and economic justice.
Appreciate the powerful voice @PembertonforMA brought to the Senate race and the crucial light he shone on issues of social & economic justice. Wish him and his family the very best.
— Groundwork Project (@GroundworkProj) October 14, 2019
Liss Riordan — a Brookline labor rights attorney who was the first to announce a primary campaign against Markey in May —thanked Pemberton for “putting himself out there and raising some important issues about our democracy.”
“Since entering this race, I too have encountered some of the same obstacles Steve described,” she said in a statement. “But I have been extremely energized and encouraged by the response I have received on the campaign trail in towns all across Massachusetts. There is a hunger among voters for a new voice.
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