Memories of Teddy Kennedy
I worked the Kennedy ‘80 campaign in Champaign-Urbana (I’ve forgotten what Congressional district that was then) and co-organized a campus campaign visit. The campaign was rough and the visit was rougher as the Senator was stuck in Chicago by weather and a firemen’s strike. He was almost two hours late and the crowd in the Auditorium got rowdier and worse. It came close to recent town hall meetings and the Senator had a lousy cold. But, he came on, after introduction by, I believe, Penny Severns, who was running as both a Kennedy delegate and for Congress. After comments, he took questions. The one I vividly remember was from some know-it-all grad student who asked something specific and technical about a bill from a committee hearing four years earlier. Not only did Kennedy remember, but he corrected on the details and responded w/ a technical answer to the scientific point made. Several others have made the same point today about his incredible memory for legislative details and how it made the difference in his ability to negotiate legislation.
Comment by Joshua on 27 August 2009 at 9:02 am:
That’s really impressive. Did you get to meet him? I met him once in Chicago and got to shake his hand while we were both holding a scotch. Well, I was drinking scotch and assume he was too. It was a brief moment, but one I’ll never forget. A few years earlier when I did an internship for the Senate, I remember doing what all new Senate interns did, sitting in the gallery and watching for the legends.
As an institution the Senate is a body with fewer giants than possibly at any point in its history. As Reid said, they lost their patriarch.
The Dems need to walk a fine line between doing what Teddy would have wanted and appearing to look like they are using his death to pass the unpassable. This could backfire, and that’s the last thing Kennedy would want. They need to approach this with grace, humility, reverence and class. This is precisely the kind of thing Hoyer would get right that Pelosi will screw up.
Comment by Brian Pierce on 27 August 2009 at 9:07 am:
I just want to put on the record that should I die, I give permission to use my death in any way possible to advance the causes I believe in.
Comment by Sarah Powers on 27 August 2009 at 11:35 am:
Most of you here are probably too young to recall Kennedy’s role in the Legal Services Corporation debates of the early 80’s. LSO is a federally funded legal assistance system for those who can not otherwise attain or afford legal representation. In the late 70’s and early 80’s, the LSO was under scrutany for spending substantial resources advocating liberal law reform, supporting activist litigation and legislative lobbying to promote nostrums and propagate opinion rather than serving the purposes for which it was originally created to serve. It still does at taxpayer expense. Bi-partsian efforts to restructure its function in allowing the organized bar at the state level to provide free legal services without taxpayer support was ferociously argued against by Kennedy in hearings I attended. No conservative Republican or liberal Democrat opposed to reform went unscathed from his vicious personal and public defense. What he and other like minded politicians wanted was the right to choose their causes, their clients and their cases. They still do and who suffers? Those that most need their help and those that are bound to pay for it. Thomas Jefferson said “to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves…is tyrannical.” To suggest he was a champion for equal access to justice as the LSC notes today with his passing is daft.
Comment by Joshua on 27 August 2009 at 1:34 pm:
Thanks for the education Sarah
Comment by Sarah Powers on 27 August 2009 at 3:20 pm:
I’m sure Kennedy accomplished much in his tenure which was indeed purposeful and beneficial to many, though it is difficult for me to summon respect for his character based on what remarkable proceedings I witnessed during those hearings and the first hand knowledge of people he targeted with less than ethical and at times almost criminal tactics. It is a shame that his sister Eunice Shriver who passed a few weeks ago garnered no more than a mere murmur in the press. SHE was the impressive one – an ardent supporter of the Susan B. Anthony Fund, putting her Catholic money where her beliefs were, developing a cirricula for disabled children, instrumental in the development of the Special Olympics. You can obviously see her impact on many including her daughter Maria who is also impressive regardless of what you might think about her actor husband. The post mortem demagoguery of one who clearly and perpetually rode on the coattais of his more impressive brothers, is tedious.
Comment by A Lurker on 27 August 2009 at 7:39 pm:
Here’s why so many people idolized Ted- maybe it was hopes of greatness (or perhaps former glory)- maybe it was romanticizing his family & failures, and maybe it was belief in the things mentioned here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9JTYnMpRyg
Comment by Sarah Powers on 28 August 2009 at 7:11 am:
As noted Ted spent much of his life riding on the coattails of JFK and RFK – even the words in this moving eulogy were RFK’s – not his. What exactly is there to idolize and romanticize about a man who was kicked out of Harvard for cheating, killed a woman because he was driving drunk, left the scene of the accident without seeking help, one who abused his political “clout” for the advancement of himself at the cost of others personal and professional lives…these are not lofty qualities worthy of idolization. He was at any given time a career politician, no different and no more remarkable than the next.
Comment by Sarah Powers on 28 August 2009 at 8:01 am:
http://sz0163.ev.mail.comcast.net/zimbra/mail#2
Carl M. Cannon for Politics Daily
Mary Jo Kopechne and Chappaquiddick: America’s Selective Memory