It wasn't all that long ago here in Massachusetts we had a special election to fill a Senate seat. When Ted Kennedy died in August of 2009, the election to replace him was held in January of 2010.

This time, it's to fill John Kerry's seat, after he was named Secretary of State.

And today is that election.

I was talking with my wife about how different this election feels.

She thinks it follows the same timeline as the last one.

I suppose she's right, but maybe the big difference is that a January election falls closer to the regularly-scheduled November elections, and here in June we're about as far in the calendar as we can get from the November elections.

Anyway, I'm not here to tell you who to vote for.

I'm just here to tell you that I'll be voting today. And if you're in Massachusetts, I think you should too.

And I offer this political analysis: everyone's predicting an Ed Markey runaway. Which, if I'm Markey, makes me nervous, because voter turnout will be low in late June anyway. And if Markey supporters get complacent and don't go to the polls, while Gomez supporters rally and show up in droves...well, I could see an upset happening.

But I'm not an expert. I'm just a citizen exercising his right to vote.

It'll be interesting to see how many Massachusetts citizens exercise that right on Tuesday.