Democratic Party United States Politicians

"Thus, much as Teddy Kennedy often seemed to be running from his notorious past—Chappaquiddick among other things—as well as the differences between his reputation and that of his brothers, it often looks as if Jeb Bush can’t quite outpace that Bush legacy, especially his own older brother’s."

"In 1980, well before he went on to become the lion of the Senate, Kennedy finally succumbed to years of public (and perhaps private) pressure to carry on the legacy of his two dead brothers and assume his rightful place in the White House. Kennedy boldly decided to take on a weak incumbent president, Jimmy Carter. But in one of the most famously incoherent moments in modern political history, when Roger Mudd of ABC News asked the usually golden-tongued senator the simple question, “Why do you want to be president?” Kennedy couldn’t answer in a way that made sense. It was the beginning of the end of his campaign. Ironically, Teddy didn’t regain his voice fully until he bowed out and the pressure was suddenly off. Then he delivered one of the greatest speeches of his life, ending in the "dream will never die.""

"The centerpiece of the Institute for the U.S. Senate is a full-scale reproduction of the Senate chambers. Every day, participants can play senator, reenacting famous legislative battles and seeing how the complicated process of drafting, negotiating and compromise can lead (or not) to the passage of a bill. It’s a good and valuable lesson about how to get things done. But the lesson should not be that that’s the only way to get things done. Kennedy’s life was about public service, and the Senate was a means to accomplish that end. Legislation was one tactic, but, as Kennedy’s own career demonstrated, the Senate could also be a bully pulpit, a platform for grand ideas and a place to be the opposition. That, it seems, is what Warren is doing. Someday she may use the legislative process to achieve her own goals. For the moment, though, the tactics she’s deploying are remarkably effective—so much so that all manner of folks (including her hometown newspaper, the Boston Globe) have urged her to jump into the presidential race. She’ll likely not heed their pleas, happy where she is. Just as surely as did Kennedy, Warren is using the Senate to make stuff happen."

"The image of Kennedy as the well-regarded inside player reaching across the aisle is a bit of myth-making. For much of his career, Kennedy was a lightning rod. Republicans used him as a liberal punching bag; caricatures of him made for reliable fundraising appeals. He raised issues and pushed causes that often were before their time, including gay rights and women’s pay. Nor was Kennedy unswervingly loyal to his party. He broke with Jimmy Carter and ran against him in 1980, an ugly fight that split the party and arguably made possible Ronald Reagan’s ultimate victory. And during the Reagan years he was the ardent voice of the opposition, pushing back against any manner of Reagan initiatives, both domestic and foreign (including, notably, aid to the Contras and the buildup of weapons aimed at the USSR)."

"Robert Caro called Lyndon Baines Johnson the “Master of the Senate,” but the title could also have applied to Kennedy. After Chappaquiddick and his loss to Carter in 1980, Kennedy finally committed himself wholeheartedly to the body, abandoning dreams for the presidency. His record of accomplishment was striking: more than 2,500 pieces of legislation introduced and over 300 passed into law. Among his signature pieces were campaign finance reform, COBRA and No Child Left Behind. He was a man of many personal demons—too much liquor and too many women—but he also made friends easily and got along well with all manner of individuals. He was focused on results and cajoled, flattered, bargained and harangued with whomever necessary to get them."

"Hello I’m Charlton Heston. Did you know Ted Kennedy’s car has killed more people than my guns?"

"At times Biden’s rhetoric seemed almost indistinguishable from that of a Republican never-Trumper like Liz Cheney, who wants to rescue the GOP to from Trumpism. He trained his ire on those who "promote authoritarian leaders, and they fan the flames of political violence that are a threat to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice, to the rule of law, to the very soul of this country." At others, he sounded more sound like Ted Kennedy as he warned of the social conservatives who want an America "where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love.""

"Though his staff tries to keep up appearances, it is clear that Kennedy is no longer an active participant in Senate business. Few things are harder for those accustomed to power than letting it go. But there is no honor in clinging to office till the bitter end."

"If Kennedy is sincere - if his chief concern is that Massachusetts not be left for months without the services of a full-time senator - then he should do the right thing right now: He should resign. For well over a year, Massachusetts has not had the “two voices...and two votes in the Senate’’ that Kennedy says its voters are entitled to. Sickness has kept him away from Capitol Hill for most of the last 15 months. He has missed all but a handful of the 270 roll-calls taken in the Senate so far this year. Through no fault of his own, he is unable to carry out the job he was reelected to in 2006. As a matter of integrity, he should bow out and allow his constituents to choose a replacement."

"I didn’t vote for Kennedy in 1982 or any other year, and I have certainly never thought of him as a saint, plaster or otherwise. Play-to-win politics, not piety, has been the essence of his long career in the Senate. He has a gift for the poignant gesture; there is no denying he is a deft hand at evoking the affection of his many admirers. But beneath the tug at the heartstrings, there is always shrewd political calculation."

"To be sure, Kennedy has a long history of opposing American interests in the world. During the Cold War, he fought time and time again against US efforts to promote liberty and repel totalitarianism. From demanding the abandonment of South Vietnam and Cambodia in the 1970s to advocating a nuclear freeze in the 1980s to opposing the liberation of Kuwait in the 1990s, Kennedy has repeatedly raised his voice and cast his vote in support of some of the world's worst tyrants. His furious opposition to the current American campaign in Iraq is in keeping with that ignoble record. But even for Kennedy, it crosses a line to claim that US forces in Iraq are no better than the monster they toppled. It suggests that his partisan hunger to defeat President Bush is so great that he would rather see America fail in Iraq than let Bush reap the benefit of success. Which is why the silence of the liberal establishment in the face of Kennedy's terrible falsehood is so ominous."

"This was not a blurted, off-the-cuff comment - Kennedy was reading from a prepared text. It was not a shocked first reaction to the abuses at Abu Ghraib - the story had broken more than a week earlier. Incredibly, the senior senator from Massachusetts really was equating the disgraceful mistreatment of a few Iraqi prisoners by a few American troops with the unspeakable sadism, rape, and mass murder that had been routine under Saddam Hussein. Kennedy's vile calumny should have triggered outrage. Here was the most prominent liberal politician in America accusing his own government of the very savagery it said it had gone to war to uproot. It was the worst kind of anti-American poison, and it was coming not from a crackpot with no following but from one of the most powerful Democrats in Congress. It should have unleashed an uproar. It unleashed nothing."

"TWO WEEKS ago Senator Ted Kennedy uttered what may turn out to be the single most disgusting remark made about the United States in the course of the Iraq War. The reaction to his slander - or rather, the lack of reaction - speaks volumes about the moral bankruptcy of the American left."

"If the legendary Massachusetts lawmaker had been actively involved, Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act would have gotten through more smoothly and expeditiously. Kennedy’s old friend, Joe Biden, could use him today. But even Ted Kennedy couldn’t do much, I fear, in this Senate."

"More than his brothers, he understood the legislative dance; the liberal lion would cut the best deal possible for his cause. To achieve this, he’d work with anyone: Republicans John McCain, Olympia Snowe, Orrin Hatch — all likely to be featured in Gabler’s second volume; in the 60s and 70s with the Southern bulls like Jim Eastland and Richard Russell."

"Kennedy, who was unqualified when elected at the age of 30 — “If your name were Edward Moore your candidacy would be a joke,” an opponent charged — nevertheless became one of the country’s greatest Senators, the most significant in modern times. Health care, immigration, civil rights, campaign finance reform, airline deregulation, ending the Vietnam War — all Kennedy signatures."

"This danger to Kennedy is believed to increase or decrease in relation to the level of his public activity and visibility. For example, when Kennedy made a strong statement about Vietnam a short while ago his “'hate mail” rose in volume, whereas when he was defeated as whip last January it slackened. If Kennedy were to become a declared candidate for President, it seems reasonable to assume, he would be in still greater danger not only because he would then be much more active on the public stage but also because he would be adding another element to the symmetry proposition — becoming the third brother to associate himself with the office of the President. Even now, Kennedy receives more hate mail and threats against his life than anyone else in the country except the President. According to one count made last February, between the time of the assassination of President Kennedy and 1971 Kennedy received 355 threats serious enough to be investigated by the Secret Service. (The next two most threatened Senators were Eugene McCarthy and Barry Goldwater, who received 99 and 94 threats, respectively, during the same period.) The Secret Service does not have the authority to protect members of Congress, but traditionally it has investigated threats to all public officials on the ground that persons making such threats are a potential danger to the President and the Vice President."

"Keeping out of the primaries puts Kennedy in situation the other candidates may well envy. One or another of them may well capture a useful number of first ballot delegate commitments by winning a string of victories in the 22 state primaries to be held next year, but it is also possible that no one candidate can dominate this extraordinary proliferation of quirky and minor‐issue‐oriented contests. And possible too that the primaries will generate such fierce rivalries that the party bosses will be forced to select a nominee from among those who remained aloof, on the theory that only such a candidate would have a chance of uniting the party in time to do battle with the Republicans. Kennedy, of course, would be an obvious choice in such a situation, especially since he alone among the Democrats does not need the primaries to prove his votegetting ability; his remarkable standing in the polls is proof of that."

"To be sure his is an extremely tentative kind of bid, one governed by the extraordinary intricacies of his political situation, restrained by concern for his personal safety and consideration of his family responsibilities, and further held back by his serious doubt that any Democrat can defeat President Nixon in the coming year. It is a bid, moreover, that Kennedy has — at least for the time being — the unique power to retract even before it becomes fully apparent, should his prospects appear poor. Yet the fact that Kennedy has made a serious thrust toward capturing his party's nomination now seems to me beyond argument."

"Could the youngest Kennedy achieve the prize that was snatched from his brothers by murderers? Or would the American political stage once again become spattered with blood and resound with police sirens? Would he go down in ignominious defeat in a state primary election, at the nominating convention, or in a general election, and thus, once and for all, dispel the “Kennedy mystique”? Or might the final tragedy be, perhaps, that this Kennedy would make it, only to become a third‐rate Chief Executive and thus demonstrate the folly of a democratic society's surrender to a subliminal yearning for royalty or leaders of mythic stature? Or would Kennedy triumph? Would he somehow be able to realize all the bright hopes of 1960, ushering in at last the “age of poetry and power” that Robert Frost thought he foresaw as the stood on the inaugural platform that blustery day in Washington 11 years ago?"

"He would be, of course, announcing his candidacy for the Presidency. And that is an event that would send shivers of joy, dread, anger and ecstasy throughout the country like nothing since, well … like nothing since Robert Kennedy's declaration on March 16, 1968. Except that this time feelings would run higher still. Even the Kennedy haters, and those who long ago dismissed this youngest of the Kennedy brothers as a talentless trader on family reputation, and those, too, who crossed him off after Chappaquiddick, could not help but be stirred by the realization that the curtain was being raised on the final act of an incredible American epic."

"Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, served in the Senate through five of the most dramatic decades of American history. He became a lawmaker whose legislative accomplishments, political authority and gift for friendship across the political spectrum invited favourable comparisons to Daniel Webster, Henry Clay and a handful of other leviathans of the country's most elite political body. But he was also beset by personal frailties and family misfortunes that were the stuff of tabloid headlines."

"I can guarantee you one thing: There will be six more years of torment for Ted Kennedy and all those other liberals."

"Well, it depends on who he endorses. If he endorses Ted Kennedy or somebody like that, George McGovern, it wouldn't make a particle of difference. You'd have to name me the candidate."

"It sounds arrogant, but Teddy would have known what I meant by that. I would put together a health care bill that conservatives and liberals could live with, that would work and would have bipartisan support."

"Personally, I mourn the loss of my dear friend Ted Kennedy. I will miss sparring with him over policy, his unparalleled skills as a legislator, his wonderful sense of humor, and his generous nature. And Americans from all points on the political spectrum can surely admire the example of a United States senator who was dedicated to the last to advancing the vision of America that he held so dearly."

"We did manage to forge partnerships on key legislation, such as the Ryan White AIDS Care Act, State Children’s Health Insurance Program, and most recently, the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act. Ted was a lion among liberals, but he was also a constructive and shrewd lawmaker. He never lost sight of the big picture and was willing to compromise on certain provisions in order to move forward on issues he believed important. And, perhaps most importantly, he always kept his word. When our carefully balanced compromise legislation came to the Senate floor, Ted often had to lead the opposition to amendments offered by Democratic colleagues that he would rather have supported. But, he took the integrity of our agreement seriously and protected the negotiated package."

"We did not agree on much, and more often than not, I was trying to derail whatever big government scheme he had just concocted. And, in those years that Republicans held the majority in the Senate, when it came to getting some of our ideas passed into law, he was not just a stone in the road, he was a boulder."

"Despite being on opposite sides of the aisle, Ted Kennedy and John McCain shared a close friendship and mutual respect that seems profoundly antique in our current acrimonious political climate. The two men were the last of the lions in the Senate, which makes it only fitting that they would die of the same cancer on the exact same day only nine years apart."

"Bernie Sanders is no Ted Kennedy. For Hillary Clinton, that must come as a relief. We’re talking about political effect here, not ideology. Senator Sanders is a lion of the liberal left, as was Senator Kennedy, after all. But Sanders has swallowed his pride after a bruising primary campaign and endorsed his party’s presidential choice well before the Democratic National Convention. That’s something Kennedy didn’t do when he ran against President Jimmy Carter in 1980. The result was a split in the party that probably cost Democrats at the polls that November."

"For Obama, there could be no stronger imprint of approval. With his tragic family history and his 45 years in the US Senate, Kennedy ranks second only to Bill Clinton among the Democratic party's living leaders. His support for Obama badly undermines Hillary Clinton's claim to be the candidate of choice of the Democratic establishment."

"It was as close as it gets to a coronation. In front of a rapturous, chanting crowd, Senator Ted Kennedy yesterday enfolded Barack Obama into a hug, and in that instant drew a clear line of succession from the Democratic hero of the past to a younger generation. Now it was official: Obama was the rightful political heir to John F Kennedy as designated by his brother Ted, his daughter Caroline, and his nephew Patrick."

"But Ted Kennedy wanted both power and publicity, not because, like Lyndon Johnson, they could inflate him and make him unassailable, or because, like Richard Nixon, they could level the playing field Nixon had found so unfair, though Ted did have an ego and he did have his sense of insufficiency to address, but because he understood that they were the means to achieving his legislative goals, which were themselves a means to expiating his sins while making him worthy of his brothers. And Ted Kennedy knew how to get both power and publicity."

"And there would be a 2018 film titled Chappaquiddick, in which Ted is depicted as infantile, self-interested, cowardly, sniveling, unconcerned with Mary Jo while he ponders how to save his political career by shifting blame. These were two iterations of Ted Kennedy—one heartless, even monstrous, the other weak and hollow. Though different, both would play on the idea of the impunity of power and the arrogance of privilege—the idea that Ted failed to act because he had always expected his father to clean up his messes and had escaped punishment because, as a Kennedy, he was too powerful to be punished."

"In the view of many Democrats, with the party in ashes, leaderless and aimless, Ted was the only one with the authority to assume its leadership and take the battle to Nixon, as he had had to assume the leadership of his family. Ted had come to see himself in the same way. Part of it was that Ted Kennedy was one of the few Democrats who was unbowed by the election defeat, one of the few who didn't want to make accommodation or need to make accommodation to Nixon. He saw Nixon as Johnson saw Nixon, a mortal threat to liberalism, a man who sought to both attack liberalism's underpinnings and unravel the liberal programs for which Ted's brothers had fought."

"In this respect, Ted Kennedy was more like Lyndon Johnson than like his brothers. He was laying down his marker on the Senate as Johnson had. He was demonstrating that he could make the institution work. It was as if he was seeking to escape the politics of charisma that his brothers had personified and that had, arguably, cost them their lives; as if he was seeking reposition himself as a pol, not a messiah, burying himself in Senate drudgery, retreating into the institution, following Johnson's lead and Humphrey's, both of whom had been whips, protecting himself physically but also spiritually. It was totally uncharacteristic for a Kennedy to do so. No Kennedy had ever been an institutionalist, much less an errand boy."

"But there was no escaping what he faced now, which was being the paterfamilias of the Kennedy family, the leader of them all, though he was only thirty-six."

"The poll-tax fight, in which Ted deployed all those strengths, had shown Ted's new heightened sense of purpose; the Morrissey affair, a lowered one. 'That was a difference between Ted and Bobby. Bobby could be passionate for his causes and personally invested in them, but he would never have been caught between his sense of personal obligation and his political duties, his lower and higher senses of purpose, which is precisely why he jettisoned Morrissey, despite his father's entreaties. Ted often would be caught because he had a difficult time distinguishing between the two. For Ted, the personal often was the political, as it had been in both the poll-tax and the Morrissey battles. Bobby would never have fought for Morrissey. Ted would never not have."

"Bobby doubted Johnson's liberalism, thought him insufficiently liberal. Ted Kennedy did not; in fact, Johnson's new liberal fervor seemed to have stoked Ted's and made him more liberal than he had been during his own brother's administration. He was catching the gust of liberal wind. And Johnson appreciated the support, even as he curried it."

"And this, too, showing Lodge the polls, was one reason that Ted Kennedy had won. Because even in victory, he didn't gloat but instead thought to assuage the feelings of the defeated. Even in victory, Ted Kennedy, who knew what it was like to lose, had something that the other Kennedys didn't have, something people could sense in him. Even in victory, when he didn't have to be magnanimous, Ted Kennedy had magnanimity."

"But Ted Kennedy had something else besides instinct and connection and charisma-something even more important than any of those when it came to winning elections. Ted Kennedy had energy, had always had energy. He took nothing for granted, despite his polls, which showed him far out in front of McCormack. Ted Kennedy had always worked harder than anyone. And now, in his own campaign, he worked harder than he had ever worked before."

"But exhilarating as it was, as rewarding as it was, it wouldn't be victory that would leave the lasting impression on Ted Kennedy from these years at Virginia. It would be all those defeats and disappointments along the way that had led to Virginia. Ted Kennedy, the boy who, as his father said, couldn't get away with anything, had known what it was like to fail, what it was like to disappoint, what it was like to be disappointed, what it was like to be disrespected. The moot court triumph couldn't expunge that. Ted Kennedy knew failure, and Ted Kennedy would use that knowledge."

"My heart dropped when I heard the news about Senator Kennedy. There is reason for optimism. He has great physicians, a loving and beautiful wife in Vicki, and the indomitable Kennedy spirit. I look forward to the day when Senator Kennedy is back on the Senate floor, giving one of his famous stem-winder speeches. I hope that day will be soon."

"When Kennedy campaigned for the presidency in 1980, “he was running because it was expected of him,” said his friend, college roommate and Senate colleague, John Tunney. Kennedy had just “half his heart and half his mind in the campaign.” Kennedy won just 38 percent of the vote in the Democratic primaries. He never saw the Oval Office. His legacy will always be tainted by his failures. And yet, above all, his is a towering, parabolic story of resilience. Through a life of grief and guilt and physical suffering, Kennedy spurned despair. He persevered. His goals, as even his ideological foes came to recognize, were generous and compassionate—“to make gentler the human condition”—he liked to say, echoing the ancient Greeks. It was no small goal; no small life."

"Ted Kennedy was unique among his brothers in that he was granted the gift of years. This exposed him, however, to the deconstruction of the New Frontier, and the colossal proliferation of late 20th century celebrity scandal mongering. The two older brothers were frozen by death. Not so with Ted. The world got to see him comb gray hair. The question asked by Schlesinger in his journal—How to correlate the lion with his flaws?—remains unanswered. The dialectic has failed to produce a reliable consensus. This much is certain, I concluded. He never got to choose his life. He was the last-born, the jokester, promoted by violent fate to pick up a fallen standard. His forays were marked by self-destruction. He did worst when the odds looked good, shined brightest when the cause seemed lost."

"Kennedy’s engaging personality and political gifts—his jocular temperament; fame and family, one-on-one negotiating skills—were assets in the chamber, as were his way with a song, and his gift for camaraderie. He could storm on the Senate floor—as when he single-handedly launched the successful opposition to the nomination of Robert Bork, a conservative idealogue, to the Supreme Court in 1987. Yet in a way unimaginable in today’s polarized era, Kennedy as gifted at identifying and recruiting Republican colleagues who were receptive to bipartisan collaboration on health care, civil rights, and other issues. Here is a partial list of the Republican leaders who joined with Kennedy on landmark measures that improved American lives: Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush, Bush, McCain, Dole, Hatch, Romney, Dirksen, Simpson, Javits, Kassebaum, Quayle, Gramm, Graham, Baker, Scott, Lott, Rudman, Weicker, Hatfield, Danforth, Jeffords, Lugar, Brownback and Brooke. In our current divide it is enlightening—indeed, somewhat stunning—to study his legislative success. Now, when the once-mighty Senate has mortgaged its independence to presidencies, popular idiocies and party donors, Kennedy’s methods are especially worth examination. He leveraged his wealth and fame wisely, spending that family coin like a philanthropic heir, on social justice and expanded health care and other benefits for those who had not been blessed, as he had, with good looks, education, and a family fortune. He began by recruiting top notch talent to his staff. These aides acted as scouts, gathering reports of promising political stirrings on Capitol Hill. With an issue in hand, Kennedy would tap the expertise of noted scholars, scientists, doctors, and business folk— often by inviting the flattered experts to tutoring sessions or “issues dinners” at his home. Kennedy would then prepare, rehearse and study, until he knew the goal, and the ways to get there, as well as any colleague."

"My thoughts and prayers are with Ted and his family. Having been on the opposite side of him on many issues over the years, I know what kind of fight he has in him. I also know that the entire nation is praying for him during this difficult time."

"I would say that in more than 45 years, Ted Kennedy has had more impact on the actions and passions of our time than any other senator, maybe any other elected official. He has devoted his life to the Senate, public service. He has been an active participant in all of the major debates. There's hardly an issue or a law that's been passed that he hasn't had some imprint on. Beyond his public life, he was a great person, a great spirit. People talk about that great Kennedy humor -- his laugh that could draw a crowd, his smile that lit up a room and that great Kennedy heart that had been broken so many times. He'd be the first to put his arm around your shoulder when you were going through a tough time personally."

"John Fitzgerald Kennedy inspired our America; Robert Kennedy challenged our America; and Teddy changed our America. Teddy was involved in every major debate in the last half of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st. Nearly every important law passed in the last half century bears his mark, and a great many of them bear his name."

"I’m not sure America has ever had a greater senator, but I know for certain that no one has had a greater friend than I and so many others did in Ted Kennedy. I will always remember Teddy as the ultimate example for all of us who seek to serve, a hero for those Americans in the shadow of life who so desperately needed one. He worked tirelessly to lift Americans out of poverty, advance the cause of civil rights, and provide opportunity to all. He fought to the very end for the cause of his life – ensuring that all Americans have the health care they need. I will miss him every day I serve, and every day I live."