TIMES ONLINE: Brilliant orator, radical champion . . . but Edward Kennedy’s weaknesses conspired to stop him reaching the White House
In many ways Teddy Kennedy was the most politically gifted of the three Kennedy brothers. The Benjamin of the family (born 15 years after his brother, the President), he was gregarious where his brother Bobby tended to be reclusive and on his day, as each would willingly testify, could outshine them both as an orator. Yet, despite his 47 years in the US Senate, he never rose any higher than holding the essentially backroom job of Majority Whip — and that only for two years between 1969 and 1971.
Why? The easy answer, of course, lies in the one Native American word, Chappaquiddick. Before the disastrous episode there in July 1969 — when the Democratic senator from Massachusetts drove his Oldsmobile off a bridge, drowning his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, in the process — little, it seemed, could stand between the sole surviving heir to the Kennedy legend and his destiny in the White House. But how he behaved on that occasion, not least his callous delay in reporting the accident and the cold-hearted way in which he went about defending his conduct on television, destroyed that dream for ever. When he eventually did stand for the presidency he was humiliated by Jimmy Carter who beat him in 24 out of 34 primaries and in 20 of the 25 caucuses.
Yet even that defeat, far worse than Ronald Reagan’s when he ran against Gerald Ford four years earlier, did nothing to destroy his status as the keeper of the liberal conscience of the Democratic Party. The possessor of a better voting record on issues such as healthcare, welfare provision and workers’ rights, he regularly topped the ratings awarded by such organisations as Americans for Democratic Action. Untainted by his brothers’ earlier records over Vietnam, he was also recognised as a liberal internationalist, though with some reservations in this country provoked by the green tinge of his views on Northern Ireland. >>> Anthony Howard* | Thursday, August 27, 2009
*Anthony Howard was Washington correspondent of The Observer in the 1960s
