Lion of the Senate

The death of Senator Edward “Ted” Kennedy announces the end of an era, that of a familial dynasty that marked American politics since the 1950s.

Few families have had a destiny as tragic as the Kennedy clan. John and Bobby were assassinated, and the son of the former president, John F. Kennedy, Jr., died in an airplane accident at 38 years old. Only Edward has succeeded in getting past 70 years of age.

The three brothers had presidential ambitions. John lived in the White House for three years until November 22, 1963. Bobby held the role of Attorney General before throwing himself into the Democratic primary race in 1968. We will never know if he would have won. He fell to an assassin’s bullets in California. Ted Kennedy tried to supplant Jimmy Carter in 1980 but his campaign bit the dust. This beneficial defeat allowed him to remain a senator from Massachusetts from 1962 to 2009 and to leave his fingerprint on a myriad of legislative projects.

Prodigious Heritage

His political heritage, prodigious according to his colleagues, friends and enemies, will unfortunately remain marked by turbulent events that occurred during his senatorial career. He was held responsible for the drowning of a former assistant, Mary Jo Kopechne in 1969, and that incident will forever haunt his political life. His alcoholic excesses and his personal escapades have equally harmed him repeatedly. In spite of everything, he was a Kennedy, with all of his strengths and faults, and the voters of Massachusetts have never abandoned him. With reason.

Over the course of decades, this member of a rich family doggedly defended the cause of the most downtrodden of American society. He would have fought until the end for the creation of a universal health care system in the United States. That was the cause of his life, he said.

Ally

At this chapter he was one of the most powerful allies of President Obama in the Senate. He was elsewhere one of the top influential Democrats to support candidate Obama for the presidency.

History made John and Robert Kennedy martyrs. They died in their age of strength, in full ascension, while they created some great hopes in heart of American society. Would they have made as many errors had they lived? Without question.

The public career of Ted Kennedy covers more than 50 years. The political man and his private life have been systematically dissected and faults have been exaggerated under the media’s magnifying glass.