Edward Kennedy has been around for so long and has been so visible for so long that when he died on Tuesday, I for one felt as if someone in my family had died.
Edward was The Great Kennedy. His father was something of a political shark, a political blathersnake with the moral compass of a tank. His brother John’s public career spanned a short period of 1947 to 1963. His brother Robert’s career spanned an even shorter period of 1961 to 1968. Edward Kennedy served in public life from 1962 to 2009 -- and there are not many of that vintage still around. Only Robert Byrd now comes to mind.
Conventional wisdom, which is usually neither, holds that Kennedy was a slacker of a senator until around 1970 - 1972, and then transformed into The Great Legislator after his presidential campaign of 1980 failed. There might be a kernel of truth to that, but not a lot. Kennedy had good legislative instincts even as a youngster.
Most people cannot give you the names of a half dozen senators, but Kennedy was instantly recognizable, the great superstar senator of our time. He was also easy to parody with his weatherbeaten Irish look and sound and the most famous head of hair in political life. The "mayor of Springfield" in The Simpsons was a particularly funny parody of him. After the 1991 Anita Hill – Clarence Thomas confrontation before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Murphy Brown did a particularly memorable satire of the committee. Both Murphy and Corky Sherwood had to testify before a sitcom Judiciary Committee of caricatures; the Kennedy caricature could not say anything that wasn’t a sexual double entendre. "Senator Batson D Belfry" in the comic strip Shoe was another obvious caricature that had elements of both Tip O’Neill and Edward Kennedy. When Belfry ran for the presidency in 1984, he noted wryly: “I have a voter identity problem. Too damn many people know who I am.” “A Verb senator, we need a verb,” a reporter in the comic strip Doonesbury once yelled at Gary Trudeau’s version of Kennedy.
I found Kennedy a particularly appealing political figure. He cut a princely figure on Capitol Hill. He held an entire constellation of instantly recognizable political ideals and he lived his ideals. He spoke clearly and brilliantly; just like his famous orator-brother Jack. He contained the most rock solid integrity of any senator of that period. You knew where he stood on the issues of the day.
Conservatives always referred to him as the great hiss and a byword of his generation, but it was Kennedy who mastered bipartisan Senate work. Orrin Hatch was not the only Republican that liked him and worked with him.
Some conservative Utahns never forgave Orrin Hatch for befriending Kennedy, and others couldn’t understand that they liked each other – but they don't understand the emotional workings of friendship. The friendship of Ted and Orrin was completely understandable and followed several predictable patterns. Kennedy had lots of charm and Hatch lots of character. It was a friendship made in heaven – a classic example of opposites attracting – the Wally and Eddie of Capitol Hill. Conservatives on principle and liberals on principle have more in common with each other than they have in common with the apolitical and all the moderates around them. Most senators had no more moral sense than a cat and came and went without influencing Kennedy and Hatch in the slightest.
John Kennedy liked Utah enough to visit Utah several times both as a senator and president. He gave a major address in the Salt Lake Tabernacle a few weeks before he died. Robert Kennedy visited Utah as well and actually spoke at Brigham Young University. Even though most political Utahns abhorred him, Edward Kennedy visited Utah on many occasions. In 1974, he visited Spencer W. Kimball at which visit President Kimball told him with a completely straight face that Catholics make great Mormons.
Ronald Reagan used to hold up Kennedy as the poster boy of tax and spend, but the fact remains Kennedy on occasion supported Reagan’s political initiatives just as he supported some of Nixon’s and some of Bushs’ initiatives. Ronald and Nancy liked Ted and Vickie on a personal level.
Peggy Noonan tells an interesting story that in the days when she served on the Great Communicator’s Speech Writing Staff she got the opportunity to write a speech for Reagan that he gave at a fund raiser for the Kennedy Library. Reagan speaking in behalf of money raising for the Kennedy library was not out of character. Both Reagan and Kennedy were great cold warriors, brilliant speakers, and basically moderate in political instincts at heart. “Typical of Ronnie,” Noonan noted without a shred of irony, “that he willingly showed up and spoke at his competitors’ blood drive.” Reagan’s talk that night was a big hit: he was warm and witty and Jacqueline thought he had captured the essence of her husband. Edward wrote him a gracious letter of thanks for that memorable speech.
Politics in the middle of the Twentieth Century was full of chance both good and bad, and the Kennedys sat at the heart of the political crap game.
Would Joseph Junior have won in politics had he lived to see the peace?
Would Robert or Edward have won the presidency had Jack died as a youngster or in battle in the War of the Pacific?
If Oswald had not assassinated Jack, would he have gotten embroiled in the Vietnam War? If Oswald had not killed Jack, would Jack have died of his diseases in office?
Would Edward or Robert have gotten embroiled in the Vietnam War if either one of them had been elected president in 1960 or 1964 or 1968?
If Nixon had been elected president in 1960, would he have gotten swallowed up the Vietnam Mess?
If Edward had not allowed Mary Jo to drown in his car, if Edward had actually taken some initiative to try and save her, would Edward have been elected president?
If he had been elected president, would he have been any good? -- given that his personality was more senatorial than executive.
John Kennedy, Peggy Noonan wrote for Ronald Reagan to say at that library fundraiser, was a man of the most interesting contradictions. That is a good way to characterize Edward Kennedy. His was the most spectacular senate career of the era, but it should not have happened.
He should have resigned his senate seat after Mary Jo died in his car.
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He shouldn’t have held onto his senate seat like the papacy either. Three terms top.
Massachusetts has plenty of interesting political possibilities. Heaven only knows who could have been a great senator from the Land of the Bean and the Cod but couldn’t get in because Kennedy and most of the other senators of the twentieth century held their seats more or less forever. Lodges. Saltensall. Kerry. Kennedy. Double digits.
The Kennedys were not the greatest political family of the age. That distinction belongs mostly for bad to the Bush Family. The Kennedys were not the greatest political family of Massachusetts either. That honor still belongs to the Adams Family. Edward Kennedy, however, was a great senator for good and bad. We will miss him, if only because we won’t have him to kick around anymore.
AND REMEMBER:
Any senator can be a bipartisan workhorse if he or she works at it.
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