June 2008 Issue

Ted’s Turn

The President’s ‘kid brother’ faces his first political challenge.

By C. Todd Williamson, III

The United States and the world became sullen with the untimely news that Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) is suffering from a malignant brain tumor. The Democratic ‘lion’ is the second longest current serving senator. Known for his tough stances on education, healthcare, and civil rights, Kennedy is beloved on both sides of the political aisle.

The ‘lion’ and ‘the little brother:’ Sen. Ted Kennedy, 2008 (l) 1962 (r) Library of Congress.

“ On numerous occasions I have described Ted Kennedy as the last lion in the Senate . . . because he remains the single most effective member . . . if you want to get results," said Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) on his presidential campaign bus.

It can take many years to attain such deep respect in the exclusive club known as the U.S. Senate, which contains 100 of the largest egos east of the Mississippi River. Although the ‘liberal lion’ came from one of the largest political and financial fortunes in American history, his first campaign was filled with all the chips stacked against him.

Working as a part-time unpaid assistant district attorney in Boston in 1962, Edward Moore Kennedy’s reputation would have been a nightmare job for even the biggest K street PR firm. Expelled from Harvard after caught cheating on a Spanish exam, Teddy, as he was called, left for the U.S. Army, where he would serve from 1951 to 1953. He went on to graduate from Harvard in 1954 after being reinstated.

The odds of a Senate candidate winning a seat with an expulsion looming over his record would’ve been tough enough, but Ted was only 30 years old during his 1962 run, the youngest age required for the Senate. Meanwhile, his oldest living brother was in the thick of his own presidency.

It was President Kennedy and his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, who was initially against the run. But in the end, their father’s opinion outweighed the two most powerful men in the country. “You boys have what you want now, and everyone else helped you work to get it. Now it’s Ted’s turn,” said Kennedy patriarch, Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr.

While their mother Rose Kennedy and Teddy’s wife at the time, Joan campaigned hard for him in Boston; President John F. Kennedy was strategically trying to keep the world from utter nuclear destruction. Alongside Robert Kennedy, the president was dealing through 13 of the tensest days in global history as the Soviet Union placed nuclear offensive missiles in Cuba, only a few miles off the coast of Florida.

Therefore the younger Kennedy didn’t feel slighted when his brothers didn’t take time from their busy schedules to come and make a cameo during his Senate campaign.
But Ted had planned to run for JFK’s old Senate seat as early as 1960. According to Kennedy biographer Laurence Leamer, the then 28 yea-old Ted approached President-elect John Kennedy about a position in his soon to be administration. Worried about the already ensuing nepotism claims surrounding word that JFK’s younger brother Bobby was already to be named attorney general, JFK told his youngest brother to earn the Senate seat in his own right.

“ Teddy, you ought to get out and get around. I’ll hear whether you are really making a mark up there. I will tell you whether this is something that you ought to seriously consider,” said JFK to Teddy. Leamer points out, “That was not the president-elect speaking. That was the firm older brother who was not about to have his brother riding on his success.”



Ted Kennedy in a parade during his first campaign, 1962.

Between 1960 and 1962, JFK’s Senate seat was temporarily held by his old roommate Ben Smith. By the time 1962 rolled around, Teddy had an uphill climb. In the Democratic primary he was to face Edward McCormack, the “favorite nephew” of the current Speaker of the House, John McCormack. If he were fortunate enough to beat McCormack, then he would go head to head in the general election with Republican George Cabot Lodge, the son of Henry Cabot Lodge the man JFK beat to earn the seat in 1952.

Any doubts in Massachusetts about Teddy’s age and maturity would come to head during the Democratic primary against McCormack. McCormack would use the phrase, “I back Jack, but Teddy ain't ready." Prior to the locally renowned debate between the two titled the “Teddy and Eddy” debate, Kennedy solicited the help of his older brothers. They both warned him not to let McCormack’s claims of his inexperience and family ties get under his skin. During the debate, McCormack didn’t waste anytime and came out swinging. "Teddy, if your name was Edward Moore instead of Edward Moore Kennedy, your candidacy would be a joke, " said McCormack.

The strategy backfired as McCormack, although well known in Massachusetts as the state’s attorney general, came across as an overbearing bully. Kennedy would go on to win the primary race with 65% of the vote. So much was made of the primary that Kennedy easily rolled over George Cabot Lodge in the general election. The Kennedy-Lodge race would’ve made more headlines due to the familial significance of the Senate seat and that the fact that Lodge’s father, Henry Cabot Lodge was currently serving as Ambassador to Vietnam in the Kennedy administration.

Attorney General Robert Kennedy, Sen. Ted Kennedy, President John F. Kennedy, 1963.

Kennedy would win his brother’s seat and launch a political career that has lasted more than 45 years. But this time in 1962 captures a moment in the heart of a short dynastic period for the Kennedy family. A year before President Kennedy’s assassination, six years before Robert Kennedy’s assassination, two years before Teddy’s back breaking plane crash, seven years before he drove his car over a bridge resulting in the death of former Robert Kennedy aide Mary Jo Kopechne, and 12 years before his own run for the presidency in 1980, the family claimed the attorney general, a senator, and a U.S. president.

But through it all, Ted Kennedy would go on to have a much longer life and make a greater legislative impact on the United States than either of his three martyred brothers. 1962 represents the time before Teddy transferred into Ted, before he transformed himself from ‘Jack’s kid brother’ to ‘lion of the Senate.’