The Lion King

A dynasty has disappeared and the last of the old school of liberals has gone, Professor Ole Moen says.

It is like a wall has fallen in the Senate. He was “the Lion King,” Ole Moen, a Professor of American history, says.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the last of three brothers, died this morning of brain cancer. He was 77 years old.

We have a Kennedy in Congress and in local state politics, but, nationwide, a dynasty is now gone. The Kennedy family is as close to a royal family as you can get in America, Moen says.

During his 46 years as Senator, he established himself as a central force in American welfare politics. He also became a living symbol of an era that, in many ways, is now over.

He was the social conscience of the Senate in a time that was not very socially conscious. Despite his unfortunate past with Chappaquiddick, which prevented him from becoming president, according to Moen, he gained a reputation as the most influential of legislators, at least for social and educational policy.

Kennedy said, himself, that his “life’s calling” was to change the unfair health care system in America. Due to his illness, he could not be in Washington to partake in the ongoing reform battle.

Still, he was there in spirit. Now Obama can make health care reform a memorial for Kennedy, just as Johnson made the civil rights struggle a memorial for John F. Kennedy, Moen says.

In a way, Kennedy’s death symbolizes a generational change in American politics.

He was really an old-fashioned liberal, a welfare Democrat of the Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson type, the kind of people Ronald Reagan called “bleeding heart liberals.” In the 1980s, “liberal” became a swear word. Clinton labeled himself a “New Democrat.” Obama is difficult to place, but he, too, represents a new age. This is goodbye to the old guard.

Despite the fact that his his political position was to the far left in American politics, Moen believes Kennedy would have become a candidate for presidency, had it not been for a car accident in 1969. A female passenger died when Kennedy drove off a bridge on the island of Chappaquiddick.

With two martyr brothers, he probably would have had a chance after Nixon, but Chappaquiddick ruined it. When he tried in 1981, it was too late. Challenging an incumbent president is something you do not do.

Can one compare what Edward accomplished in the Senate for 46 years with what his brother accomplished as president in three years?

Edward has contributed most to domestic issues, but it is like comparing apples and oranges. There are two arenas, two processes. JFK had an enormous symbolic role in the Cuban missile crisis, the easing of tensions and the injection of a sense of idealism into the nation.

Edward has been an important working politician. He contributed to wins in Congress from the 1970s until today. He had a finger in every pie. He was the least visible of the brothers, but he quietly accomplished great things.