Senator Ted Kennedy's endorsement of Barack Obama in last year's primary season made a political newcomer the natural heir to the Kennedy legacy in the eyes of many Democrats. Since then, the scion of the clan has done everything he can to bestow his good will upon the new president, down to supplying the first family with a puppy from the same breeder that provided the senator with his beloved dogs, Sunny and Splash, and more recently the aptly named Captain Courageous or Cappy for short.
But time is short. Kennedy is living with a lethal brain tumor that is likely to claim his life. According to the Boston Globe, out of the roughly 2,500 bills he has authored over his 46 years in the senate, at least 300 have become law, putting his stamp on just about every important piece of social policy shaping society today. What's still undone is universal health care. It's eluded Kennedy at least twice before, but this time the stars are aligned with Obama deferring to Kennedy and other powerful committee chairs in Congress to make it happen.
The bond between Kennedy and Obama is strong but it wasn't always thus. In a prodigiously reported and insightful new book on Kennedy's life and career, "The Last Lion," compiled by Boston Globe reporters, we get a glimpse of Kennedy's Irish ire. Pressed by Dick Durbin, the senior senator from Illinois, to support Obama, Kennedy initially resisted, then brandished a newspaper clip quoting Obama as a state senator in June 2003 calling on Democrats in Congress to "get some backbone" and vote down President Bush's Medicare prescription-drug bill because it didn't do enough to help seniors. Obama's quote: "We've got to call up Ted Kennedy and say, 'Ted, you're getting a little old now, and you've been a fighter for us before. I don't know what's happening now. Get some spine and stand up to Republicans.'"
Kennedy is a legislator, not a perfectionist, and with the memory of earlier missed opportunities driving him, he had urged reluctant Democrats to work with Bush and the Republicans to develop a bill. He ended up voting against the bill for the reasons Obama cited and because it was too generous to business and pharmaceutical interests, but his early backing was crucial in allowing the Republicans to gain traction for the legislation. Kennedy knew it was less than perfect, but argued that Democrats could come back and fix it later, a familiar line when marketing a compromise on Capitol Hill.
Recalling Obama's harsh words about Kennedy, for which he later apologized, I chuckled when I saw Ruth Marcus's column in The Washington Post on Wednesday with the headline, "Where is Obama's Backbone?" She says it's fair to ask whether Obama has been "scary enough" in working with Congress, concluding that Republicans aside, even among Democrats, "Who's afraid of Barack Obama?" She ticks off several items, among them ending subsidies for well-heeled farmers, bypassing banks and having the government administer student loans to save money on fees, a Social Security commission to rein in the program, along with a cap-and-trade system to deal with climate change that Obama wants but Congress pointedly didn't include in its budget. Marcus is right that leadership is about picking battles, and Obama has a long list of them, including some on her list.
Kennedy is a master of the kind of legislative finesse that gets a deal done, and he's been plowing the ground for major health-care reform for more than a year in anticipation of a Democratic president. Ralph Neas, CEO of the National Coalition on Health Care, an alliance of 79 organizations, business groups, unions, health-care providers and consumer groups, many of them odd bedfellows, has been to at least 10 meetings with Kennedy staff. The most recent was last month when a hundred "stakeholders," the term of art for special interests, gathered in the fourth floor of the Dirksen Office Building in the Health and Education committee hearing room for an update on evolving policy concerns. The attendees ranged from Easter Seals and the National Women's Political Caucus to the American Federation of Hospitals and American Health Insurance Plans. "I'm not sure I can remember anything comparable," says Neas, marveling at the early "buy-in" among the disparate groups.
Republican senators have not yet permitted their staffs to participate in these confabs, but Neas says it is too early for that and besides he's relying on Kennedy's personal relationships with ranking committee Republican Mike Enzi and longtime confidante Orrin Hatch to smooth the way, or at least resist erecting boulders to block compromise. "There's no one who can feel the rhythm of the legislative process like Senator Kennedy," says Neas, who has taught the legislative process at Harvard, Georgetown and the University of Chicago. He savors the memory of a midnight call from Kennedy a decade ago announcing a deal on a civil-rights act everybody thought was dead. The goal is to get health-care reform to the Senate floor by Labor Day, an ambitious deadline that can't come too soon for Kennedy.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
