Heirs to Kennedys Legacy Not Easy to Discover
Sen. Edward Kennedy was the thundering partisan, the unapologetic liberal leader, the master legislative dealmaker and tactician. He was also flawed, haunted by tragedy, yet a portrait in charm and Irish bonhomie.
In time, there will be many pretenders to his legacy.
Scanning the political landscape, there are special politicians, remarkable in their own right, who can lead the Democratic Party. But none embodies the totality of what Kennedy brought to the floor of the Senate, to the campaign trail, to the negotiating table.
To be sure, President Barack Obama was virtually anointed by Kennedy as the new generations recipient of the Kennedy familys political mantle. And Obama has benefited immensely from comparisons of his style to the youthful vigor once displayed by President John F. Kennedy, Sen. Kennedys older brother.
“Kennedy endorsed him, embraced him and made his campaign his own,” said Roger Hickey, co-director of the liberal Campaign for Americas Future. “So many of the hopes of everyone who were followers of Ted Kennedy are also resting on Barack Obama. Hes the largest leader on the scene.”
But while Kennedy seized the role of liberal standard-bearer, Obama perceives himself as a post-partisan president, one eager to shun ideological labels.
There is Hillary Rodham Clinton, another skilled politician who emerged from the shadow of a family name to develop her own reputation as a progressive who forged warm working relationships with her adversaries. Howard Dean, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, galvanized young people as a presidential candidate in 2004 and has become a high-profile advocate of the liberal case for a health care overhaul.
But Obama and Clinton arent creatures of the Senate. For Kennedy, the Senate was his permanent redoubt; for Obama and Clinton, it was a sojourn. And Dean is a former governor of Vermont who has a scratchy relationship with Washington Democrats.
Sen. Harry Reid, the Senates Democratic leader, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sit atop the legislative party hierarchy. But they dont have the same venerable status as Kennedy. And though Pelosi is embraced by the left wing of the party, shes too polarizing both inside and outside the Congress to match Kennedys lawmaking touch.
Kennedys old colleague John Breaux, a former senator from Louisiana who made his own share of legislative deals operating from the center of the party, said Kennedy might simply be too exceptional a figure to replace.
Unique in talent, unique in pedigree; a man of a certain time.
“No one ever challenged his sincerity of being a progressive, liberal Democrat,” Breaux said. “Those credentials were there, they were earned. It was his family tradition. When he put his good-deal imprimatur on something, it made it acceptable to the more moderate to liberal progressive wing of the party.
In Kennedys absence, for instance, the Senate debate over health care has involved a number of senators. Kennedys good friend Chris Dodd, D-Conn., managed to get a bill out of Kennedys Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee, but not a single Republican voted for it. Sen. Max Baucus of Montana has been working to win over Republicans, but has confounded liberals in the process.
Perhaps Kennedys legacy is not meant for a single politician. The dealmaking could rest in the hands of centrists like Baucus or Sens. Evan Bayh of Indiana, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana or Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas. All seek to work with conservatives and Republicans. But they dont have Kennedys roar or the trust of liberals.
Or the left wing could fall behind the leadership of a diverse set of liberal lawmakers, each taking a sliver of what had been Kennedys realm. Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont is a vigorous voice on civil liberties; Dodd, Tom Harkin of Iowa, Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Barbara Mikulski of Maryland on health care; and Richard Durbin of Illinois on labor. Congressional observers also mention Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island as a Democrat to watch in the Senate.
“I see other figures inside and outside the Senate who can be very effective, coax people on individual issues or for a liberal perspective, and I see a lot of talented people,” said Norman Ornstein, a congressional scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. “But in the Senate we talk about whales and minnows. I dont see a great whale on the horizon who comes anywhere close to what Kennedy provided.”
Kennedy died at age 77. He was elected to the Senate at age 30. He honed his skills in a different time.