Overcoming a history of family tragedy, including the assassinations of a brother who was president and another who sought the presidency, Senator Kennedy seized the role of being a "Senate man.'' He became a Democratic titan of Washington who fought for the less fortunate, who crafted unlikely deals with conservative Republicans, and who ceaselessly sought support for universal health coverage.
"Teddy,'' as he was known to intimates, constituents, and even his fiercest enemies, was an unwavering symbol to the left and the right - the former for his unapologetic embrace of liberalism, and latter for his value as a political target. But with his fiery rhetoric, his distinctive Massachusetts accent, and his role as representative of one of the nation's best-known political families, he was widely recognized as an American original. In the end, some of those who might have been his harshest political enemies, including former President George W. Bush, found ways to collaborate with the man who was called the "last lion'' of the Senate.
For me, a kid who grew up in Massachusetts and whose grandfather was Boston-born Irish and a whiskey salesman, Ted Kennedy was an icon, right up there with Freddie Lynn and Paul Revere. I first got interested in politics by following Kennedy in the mid-1970s, and was pulling for him in 1980. The brothers Jack and Robert were the legends, the demi-gods offstage; Ted was their voice made manifest. He fought for the little guy, and we loved him for it. And who couldn't idolize the person who introduced me to poetry?
Later, of course, came the realizations about the unseemly side of the Senator's life. I don't want to get into that, only to say it never diminished New England's love for the public man. The whole clan was like something out of Greek myth - the ill-starred rulers of Thebes, or one of the too-human kings besieging Troy. Stately, proud, aristocratic, mythic...but oddly prey to common human frailties, enabling us to feel simultaneously in thrall and superior to the family.
The odd thing is all this distracted us all from the actual work Kennedy did in the Senate. By most accounts, he was one of the best: able to cross party lines, form friendships, and build consensus on issues by appealing to common civic virtue. Some today are calling him the best Senator, ever. More graciously, some say he was the best of the brothers. All I'll say is that he was an influence and a hero to me, and I'll miss him.
