Another Kennedy Announces Senate Bid

US Rep. Joe Kennedy III formally declared his candidacy for the US Senate on Saturday, becoming the first member of the Kennedy political dynasty to bid for the upper chamber of Congress since Edward M. Kennedy in 1962, the AP reports. The Massachusetts Democrat formally announced his campaign in an email before a kickoff event in East Boston, where the Kennedy clan first settled after arriving from Ireland well over a century ago. "I'm running because our country is at a moment of truth," Kennedy told supporters in the email. "Donald Trump has forced a long overdue reckoning in America. And how we respond will say everything about who we are."

Joe Kennedy is a grandson of Robert F. Kennedy, who was attorney general in his own brother John F. Kennedy's White House and was a senator running for the Democratic presidential nomination when he was assassinated in 1968. JFK was felled by an assassin's bullet five years earlier, in 1963. The 38-year-old Joe Kennedy will face 73-year-old incumbent Sen. Edward Markey in next year's primary. Joe Kennedy's father, Joseph Kennedy, also served in Congress. Others elected to office include former US Rep. Patrick Kennedy II and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, who served two terms as Maryland's lieutenant governor..

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