Memo to Patrick Kennedy: You're Next

This punk has the nerve to trash Scott Brown as a "joke" after taking his father's seat in Massachusetts. Well, he better keep his head up because his own seat in Rhode Island may well be in jeopardy.

John J. Loughlin II, a three-term state representative from Tiverton, has formally launched his Republican bid to unseat the only remaining member of the storied Kennedy clan in national elective office.

Though he has been raising money for months, Loughlin, 50, officially entered the race against U.S. Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy, an eight-term Democrat representing the First District, with an announcement Thursday morning outside the office park where his Lincoln grade school used to be.

Touting himself as a “new voice for Rhode Island,” Loughlin denounced Kennedy as “a guy who is out of touch,” who is vulnerable to the same “sentiments” of voter-dissatisfaction that carried Republican Scott Brown to victory in Massachusetts last month, in a contest for the U.S. Senate seat that Kennedy’s father — the late Ted Kennedy — held for nearly five decades.

“People are tired of government not being responsive, of government not listening,” Loughlin, who describes himself as both a fiscal and social conservative, told a small, but enthusiastic group of supporters. On abortion, for example, Loughlin said he is “pro-life.” A retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve, he said, he sees no reason to repeal the military’s “don’t ask-don’t tell” policy for gay servicemen because “service in the military is about defending our country … it is not necessarily about open sexuality of any kind.”

He leveled this broadside at the Democrats controlling Congress: “In Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s world, there is no problem that can’t be solved by more government. But Washington today is not the solution, it’s part of the problem ... Our national debt is an unthinkable $12 trillion. ... and the president’s new budget forecasts trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see.”

“And what,” he asks, “has all [this] spending gotten the people of Rhode Island? Nothing. Not one job.”

If Patches doesn't realize he's vulnerable, he may want to sober up and have a look at these numbers.

Talking at length about his 26-year military career, Loughlin, who now runs Media-Rite, a television, radio and film production company, said: “We must treat our adversary for what they are — not as ordinary criminals, but as enemies in wartime. That means military justice,” he said, “not civilian court trials where they are granted the right to remain silent and the right through the legal process to obtain sensitive information.”

His announcement coincided with the release of a Channel 12 poll that found 59 percent of those surveyed said they would vote to replace Kennedy (28 percent) or at least consider another candidate (31 percent). Only 35 percent said they’d vote to reelect him.

Thank to Ed Morrissey for the link.