With the news that Robert Kennedy’s grandson was contemplating a run for the House of Representatives, I began to wonder how the sprawling Kennedy clan goes about selecting their best candidates for public office.

Is there some kind of meeting of the elders at their Hyannisport compound? An intra-family “primary” campaign for the opportunity to run?

Then, after some sleuthing around the web, I stumbled upon this remarkable (and rare) video of the Massachusetts political dynasty’s “Olympics”-styled selection process:

See also: BREAKING: Gonzo Kennedy Will Run To Replace Patrick Kennedy

She did a lot of diving into the water off of Massachusetts, evidently– I wonder if she spotted any more submerged vehicles registered to Kennedys. Via Gateway Pundit and Jim Treacher (if that’s still what he’s calling himself), who observes,

As you watch it, remember: Somehow this is supposed to make you like him and his family less.

It takes a special kind of delusion to believe, amid a popular revolt against too much government spending and debt, that another $1 trillion would have made all the difference. But that’s the latest left-wing theme.

The real message of Massachusetts is that Democrats have committed the classic political mistake of ideological overreach. Mr. Obama won the White House in part on his personal style and cool confidence amid a recession and an unpopular war. Yet liberals in Congress interpreted their victory as a mandate to repeal more or less the entire post-1980 policy era and to fulfill, at last, their dream of turning the U.S. into a cradle-to-grave entitlement state.

So, to be clear, Martha Coakley lost in Massachusetts because:

1. The American people don’t think the pace of change is fast enough; AND
2. The American people are resistant to change.

We don’t want it at all, but we do want it quickly. Got it.

UPDATE: Howard Dean gives Chris Matthews an equally inane explanation. (Via Allahpundit.)

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

This is the text of an email I received from Barack Obama this morning:

Fellow Collectivist Compatriot –

Right now, the polls are open to elect a new senator to the seat that my friend Ted Kennedy held for 47 years.

The choice could not be more stark, and the result could not be of greater consequence — for Massachusetts or the nation.

The Bay State can send progressive champion Martha Coakley to Washington to fight for everything we believe in — health reform, getting all of our money back from Wall Street, and holding corporate interests accountable.

Or the Senate can get one more person already walking in lockstep with Washington Republicans.

The polls are still open, the choice has not been made, and you still have a crucial role to play by calling voters in Massachusetts. In a low-turnout special election like this one, every single voter counts.

Please sign up for a phone bank for Martha Coakley near you on this Election Day.

Opponents of change and progress have been pouring money and resources into the Commonwealth — they want to keep things just as they are.

The most important thing you can do to stand up to them is call other voters and urge them to get out to vote for the leader we need representing Massachusetts.

In a race as close as this one, no matter how many voters you call, you could tip the balance.

So please make sure you do everything you can today. Click here to find an Election Day phone bank near you:

http://ma.barackobama.com/CoakleyPB

If you were fired up in the last election, I need you more fired up in this election.

Thanks for everything you’ve done, and for your efforts in this final push,

President Barack Obama

I appreciate the convenience of having, in one place, the sum total of “everything” Obama and his supporters believe in. One more time–

The Bay State can send progressive champion Martha Coakley to Washington to fight for everything we believe in — health reform, getting all of our money back from Wall Street, and holding corporate interests accountable.

Let’s look at each of them:

1. “Health reform” – Does he mean healthcare reform, or health insurance reform? Because “health reform” sounds kind of spooky. Anyway. While Americans rank health care high on their list of important issues, it is not because they want a wholesale Congressional reinvention of medicine. (56% opposed and only 38% in favor as of yesterday.)
2. “Getting all of our money back from Wall Street” – In other words, let’s punish American business.
3. “Holding corporate interests accountable” – In other words, let’s punish American business.

Now let’s look at the most important issues to Americans according to Rasmussen’s most recent poll.

Not surprisingly, the economy continues to be the most important issue. How exactly does punishing American business help the economy and generate jobs?

Martha Coakley is going to lose today, and a massive disconnect with what American voters actually care about– hell, even Massachusetts voters– is why.

Most of the Hopenchangey sloganeering has lapsed, but it looks like Obama’s still good for some pitifully contrived enthusiasm of the Wal-Mart employee chant variety–

If you were fired up in the last election, I need you more fired up in this election.

Even Obama’s emails sound perfunctory and joyless. I am genuinely beginning to believe this guy is miserable and doesn’t want to be president anymore.

This is no time to become faint-hearted, or fussy about silly old documents written by long-dead white slaveholders who absent-mindedly forgot to add medical insurance as an “inalienable right.”

…

The rest of America has never properly thanked the people of Massachusetts for thirty years of Ted Kennedy’s wise Senate leadership. We should be willing to dig deep, and pay any price to keep Scott Brown from blocking the Kennedy legacy of total government power over the individual… especially since he would be doing it from a Senate seat he foolishly thinks is the property of America. The core belief of progressive thought, in the age of Obama, is that nothing belongs to anyone unless the government allows it. If Coakley wins on Tuesday, we will come one step closer to extending that principle over every cell in your body.

Terrible campaign. Difficult climate. Yes, but this is Massachusetts.

Tone-deaf candidates running on nothing but a sense of their own entitlement are all but compulsory: This is a land where John Kerry demonstrates the common touch by windsurfing off Nantucket in buttock-hugging yellow Spandex.

I think they were worried about more cars being driven off bridges into their habitat. Now they know they are safe.

This great white shark now knows he is safe in the waters around Massachusetts.