Innate ability to compromise made Kennedy a dealmaker
By Beth Miller
U.S. Sen. Edward M. “Ted” Kennedy Sr. — the “liberal lion of the Senate,” who was raised in power, crippled by scandal, and later regarded by many as the most effective political force in the Senate in the past 25 years — died late Tuesday, 15 months after his diagnosis with a cancerous brain tumor.
Kennedy, 77, died with friends and family at his side at what is known as the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port, Mass.
The seven-term Massachusetts senator championed the rights of the powerless and marginalized, pushing reforms in housing, civil rights, education, health care, and employment. He fought for COBRA — the health care insurance provided for those who are between jobs — and to extend Medicare benefits that covered prescription costs for the elderly.
It was people Kennedy cared about, said Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday — not just the masses, but individuals.
“It was never about him,” Biden said in a speech Wednesday at the Department of Energy. “He was always about you. … I think the legacy he left is not just in the landmark legislation he passed, but in how he helped people look at themselves and look at one another.”
Wilmington attorney Chipman Flowers said Kennedy’s support for public service was most significant to him.
“We lose that sometimes in the health care debate and civil rights,” said Flowers, who met Kennedy while working in Washington and as a student at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government a few years ago. “He was a true champion for public service, ensuring that people like me had a chance to get involved. … When he spoke, something moved you — and I think for people who did not know him personally sometimes that was lost in the issues, too. He had that Kennedy spirit.”
Kennedy was the last — detractors would say the least — of three brothers who personified not only the powerful Kennedy dynasty but also the Democratic Party in much of the last half century.
And while he lived in the perpetual shadow of his brothers — President John F. Kennedy and California Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, both of whom were assassinated in the 1960’s — his greatest contributions came in the political trenches of the Senate, where deals are made and faces saved. There, he reached beyond sometimes-sharp political differences and demonstrated a masterful ability to steer polar opposites to consensus.
He was a mentor to President Barack Obama and his endorsement of Obama’s candidacy in January 2008 helped propel the young Illinois senator to the White House past his better-connected Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.
And that, in turn, put a longtime Delaware senator and Kennedy ally — Biden — in the White House.
“I literally would not be standing here were it not for Teddy Kennedy,” Biden said.
Kennedy was an iconic liberal, whose views often chafed conservatives, fueled hours of air time for talk-show hosts and blinded some to his ability to build bridges and mend fences.
It was on a bridge at Chappaquiddick, Mass., in 1969 that his best political ambitions perished, along with the young woman — Mary Jo Kopechne — who was a passenger in his car when he drove off the bridge. He swam to safety, but did not notify authorities of the accident until the next day, when her body was found in the vehicle.
The Chappaquiddick scandal, a reputation for womanizing, heavy drinking and his vigorous defense of younger Kennedys caught in their own personal scandals caused some to dismiss him as a lightweight playboy unable to exercise personal restraint and unworthy of their confidence.
Many Catholics — who had celebrated the rise of his brother, John, to the presidency — turned against Ted Kennedy after Chappaquiddick and due to his support for abortion rights.
Mentor, friend to Biden
But in 1972, Kennedy reached out to help another young Irish Catholic with political aspirations — Biden — win his race for the U.S. Senate seat held by Republican Caleb Boggs. Delaware voters re-elected Biden six times, including last November when the Obama-Biden ticket won the White House.
“Every important event in my adult life … every single one, he was there. He was there to encourage, to counsel, to be empathetic, to lift up,” Biden said.
Biden recalled a visit to Delaware that Kennedy made to help him win the 1972 election, and said Kennedy was supportive as he stood vigil at a hospital with his sons, injured in the car accident that had killed Biden’s wife and daughter.
“He was on the phone with me literally every day in the hospital,” Biden said. “… I’d turn around and there would be some specialist from Massachusetts, a doc I never even asked for, literally sitting in the room with me. And you know it’s not just me that he affected like that — it’s hundreds upon hundreds of people.”
U.S. Sen. Ted Kaufman, Biden’s longtime chief of staff appointed by Gov. Ruth Ann Minner to fill Biden’s seat through 2010, remembered another such incident after one of Biden’s aneurysm surgeries in 1988. A decision was made then that Biden would go into total seclusion, Kaufman said, taking only the calls of family or close friends.
“One day, there is a knock on the door of his home, and it’s Senator Kennedy,” Kaufman said. “He had gotten on the train and, without telling anybody, just came up to see him.”
That personal touch was a Kennedy signature, Kaufman said.
“It was notes, flowers, phone calls — that’s the way Kennedy operates,” Kaufman said. “It always embarrassed me. I could never figure out how to do all the things he did…. You know that saying that people can be so concerned about the world and the world’s problems that they can’t focus on individuals. Sen. Kennedy was passionate about the world’s problems, but also incredibly empathetic with individuals.”
The trait was key to his effectiveness as a legislator, too, a role he embraced differently after his unsuccessful presidential campaign in 1980. He believed he could beat incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter, but struggled with the ghosts of his past and with his message.
“I was surprised when I heard him speak during that campaign,” said Republican Pete du Pont, who was Delaware’s Congressman from 1971-77, its governor from 1977-85, and made his own run for president in 1988. “In the Senate, he had a vision that everyone always understood, that he always argued. But in his presidential campaign, he didn’t do a good job at that. After that campaign, I think he began to pull himself together better.”
A ‘critical fulcrum’ in Senate
Joseph Pika, an expert on the American presidency and a professor of political science at the University of Delaware, agreed that the 1980 campaign was a turning point.
“After that, he became this critical fulcrum in the Senate, someone who understood how far you could go in negotiations and bargaining,” Pika said. “He was trusted by his liberal colleagues, who knew that when he made a compromise with the Republicans there was nothing more that he could get out of the discussions and bargaining.
“And he was respected on the Republican side — and we’re hearing a lot of that now — from senior Republicans who seemed genuinely fond of him. … That doesn’t mean he wasn’t on the losing side of a lot of things. It was not uncommon to find him in the minority with 20 votes. But on the whole, he was someone that Republicans realized they could work with.”
Kennedy lured Republican Russell Peterson, Delaware’s governor from 1969-73, from his role as head of the Presidential Council on Environmental Quality under President Gerald Ford, to become the head of the Office of Technology Assessment of the U.S. Congress. The office was tasked with advising Congress on the long-term impact of pending decisions on the environment, economy and other political and social issues.
Peterson said Kennedy was chairman of the board, which had drawn sharp criticism that the 12-man board — six Democrats and six Republicans from the House and Senate — was purely political. Kennedy wanted Peterson for his liberal tilt, credentials as a chemist, and Republican affiliation. Peterson, who is now a Democrat, said he would take the job if he had the power to hire and fire and do what was required to shed the reputation of the board.
When Peterson later got rid of several staffers, some board members — including former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens — were angry. Peterson, now 93, recalled Stevens’ threat.
“Who the hell do you think you are? You report to us, we don’t report to you. If you push this thing, I’m going to cut your budget in half,” Stevens reportedly told Peterson.
“Senator, I’d rather have half the budget and a credible organization than twice the budget and nobody paying attention to me,” Peterson said.
Kennedy soon told Peterson he would have to renege on the hiring-firing authority originally granted.
“And I said, ‘OK, I’m resigning right now then and I’ll notify the press what the hell is going on in this organization,’ ” Peterson said.
When Kennedy was unable to budge Peterson, he told him he would go back to Stevens.
That deal apparently was struck, Peterson said, because at the board’s next meeting Stevens was among those voting unanimously to approve Peterson’s decision.
Peterson said he felt sorry for Kennedy and the personal problems he had.
“I personally didn’t weigh some of these things as heavily as most people did,” Peterson said. “But I felt sorry for him. He would certainly have become president if not for that. … And I think he would have made a good president.”
Instead, Massachusetts voters sent Kennedy back to the Senate, where he was in his 47th year when he died Tuesday.
Biden and Kennedy were fast friends and regular allies in the Senate. Both chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee, where they grilled Supreme Court nominees together. They also crossed party lines when they believed the issues warranted such action — Kennedy most notably with the No Child Left Behind education reforms of President George W. Bush.
Sen. Tom Carper said he got a cool reception from Kennedy after he became a senator in 2001. They had differed when Carper was Delaware’s governor.
“We didn’t really lock horns, but we didn’t see eye to eye on education,” Carper said.
So Carper asked to meet with Kennedy, and was invited to lunch in Kennedy’s “hideaway” in the Capitol. The hideaway reminded Carper of the Kennedy library, with photographs of John Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, their families, and all sorts of campaign paraphernalia.
“He gave me a guided tour, which I’ll never forget, and then we talked — not so much about issues, but about what we thought was important,” Carper said. “I’m not going to say we were best friends, but it kind of cleared the air for us. I will always remember that day and treasure it.”
Liberal, loud and committed
To the last, Kennedy was a political realist. He could count votes and he knew the health care legislation he had long sought could be foiled by his own grave illness if he was unable to cast his vote.
He urged Massachusetts lawmakers and Gov. Deval Patrick to change state law to allow an interim appointment in the event the seat became vacant. He also urged the governor to get an “explicit personal commitment” from his appointee not to seek the office on a permanent basis.
Such deals, attempted deals, and rumors of deals added no small amount of cynicism and conspiracy theories to the public debate on how those in power manipulate the political system to the exclusion of voters.
Some raised those questions again after last November’s election, when Minner appointed Biden’s chief of staff to Biden’s senate seat. Kaufman vowed not to run for the office in 2010, and by then, cynics and other observers said, Biden’s son Beau — the state’s attorney general — would be home from his deployment to Afghanistan with the Delaware Army National Guard.
Without such an appointment, Kennedy’s seat will remain vacant until a special election is held at least five months from now — beyond the coming debate over health care reform.
“It’s sad and almost tragic that his own health prevented him from participating as he wanted to on health care reform,” Carper said. “In the year when we turned our full attention to improving the quality of health care, his voice has been missing from the debate and, more important, his leadership has been missing — the interpersonal relationships.”
That was Kennedy’s trump card.
“He was liberal and loud and committed to the least among us,” Carper said. “And he had an uncanny ability to work across the aisle and get a lot done for all of us.”
Additional Facts
IN MEMORY
Following President Barack Obama’s order to lower United States flags to half-staff in honor of Sen. Edward Kennedy, who passed away Tuesday, Gov. Jack Markell has ordered all Delaware flags lowered to half-staff through Sunday.
