I’m not quite sure why, but I never fully warmed up to Ted, perhaps because I was literally there when he first ran for office. Then too, beyond Chappaquiddick itself I never fully connected with him. I’m not sure what was happening in my life at that moment but I never engaged at the time of his 1980 attempt to push Carter out of the way for re-nomination, something that in retrospect seemed absurd given Kennedy's own past and that Carter was a sitting president, albeit unpopular in many ways. Perhaps my relative distance from it all was because I was in my first year of being a practicing lawyer at a big law firm.
In any case, for me Ted lacked the most endearing qualities of his brothers, John’s charisma, charm and gentle humor, and Bobby’s late blooming but authentic love affair with the poor and destitute. Ted seemed more an institutionalized Kennedy which over the years of his Senate service seemed to become even more the case. His failed marriage and his own drinking (on top of Joan’s) hardly served him or his image well. It wasn’t until after the trial of his nephew that he seemed to find a new beginning of sorts with his new wife, albeit after 30 years in the Senate. And, admittedly for me, the 1990’s belonged to the Clintons, not the Kennedys. John Jr’s death and fairly lackluster political pursuits by other Kennedys, culminating in Caroline’s abysmal run for Senate, further dimmed the Kennedy legacy. Ted continued to contribute, and I appreciate him for those contributions, but his time had passed. It was, indeed, time for a new generation of leadership, as his brother John had exclaimed in 1960, and Ted threw his considerable weight and influence behind Obama.
