Atlantic Insight-Bill Belliveau-Moncton NB-political and social commentary on current economic impact events facing New Brunswick

In July 1969, on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, a car driven by U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy drove off a bridge into Poucha Pond. There was a woman in the car, Mary Jo Kopechne, a former campaign worker for his assassinated brother U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York. An older brother John F. Kennedy, President of the United States had been assassinated in Dallas, Texas on Nov. 22, 1963. Ted Kennedy escaped the accident but Kopechne drowned. I vividly remember the newscast and the shock. I was at my parents place in Shediac Cape. Ted Kennedy was an icon, only surviving brother of a storybook president and presumed heir to the presidential throne. The Chappaquiddick accident may have changed the course of U.S. history. I say that because the accident deprived Ted Kennedy of an unfettered run at the presidency. Ironically, it created a platform for a liberal senator who would go on to become one of the most influential and progressive senators in U.S. history.

Kennedy served nine terms in the Senate. At the time of his death, he was the second most senior member of the Senate and the third-longest-serving senator in U.S. history. He was best known as one of the most outspoken and most effective proponents of liberal causes in the United States. More than 300 Kennedy bills were enacted into law.

Ted Kennedy played a major role in passing laws addressing immigration, cancer research, health insurance, apartheid, disability discrimination, AIDS care, civil rights, mental health benefits, children's health insurance, education and volunteering. In May 2008, Kennedy was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. At the time of his death, he was working on universal health care legislation, perhaps his most important "life's work".

On Jan. 28, 2008, Ted Kennedy endorsed Barack Obama for President. He called Obama the "one candidate who has the extraordinary gifts of leadership and character that match the extraordinary demands of this moment in history." Before his endorsement of Obama, the Massachusetts Senator had remained on the sidelines of the presidential campaign. His endorsement would prove to be momentous.

There has been much written and said about Ted Kennedy. Sadly, some will characterize him as simply the younger brother of two family presidential candidates, a senator who was elected on his older brother's coat-tails. His brother John was a game-changer, the first Catholic President of the United States, someone who inspired hope for a better future and someone who inspired Americans to look beyond their borders with more than military might. His brother Robert was Attorney General of the United States and a presidential candidate when he was assassinated. I would argue that Ted Kennedy accomplished more as Senator than either of his two brothers did as President or Attorney General.

When Ted Kennedy ran for president against Jimmy Carter in 1900, he lost his own bid for the presidency but in losing he seemed to develop some sense of comfort with himself. For years he had been measured by comparisons to his older brothers and perhaps more significantly, by his own inadequacies and insecurities. When the nomination was lost, he seemed, for whatever reason to rise above these issues.

Senator Kennedy survived high expectations, harrowing violence, grief, tragically self-inflicted scandal, personal tumult, isolation and derision. His failed run for the presidency was perhaps the slain dragon he had to step over to make his own story.

Whether it was because of his brutal acquaintance with pain and loss or his understanding of the fragility of life, everything he would do in the second half of his life seemed to make up for the ordeals, endured and inflicted in the first half. What Ted Kennedy did with the second half of his life, his brothers were denied. He became the embodiment of the family DNA - compassion.

What Kennedy did in the Senate, for health care, for poverty alleviation, for so many mainstays of social policy, changed America in ways that may never have been possible had he been president. That he was able to shift the momentum at a crucial moment in Barack Obama's presidential campaign was a testament to his unrivalled currency in the Democratic Party. That Kennedy wasn't able to see transformative health care reform in his lifetime only underscores the urgency of it. Former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney portrays Kennedy as one of the champions of a single-payer health system. He describes Kennedy as an ally in the fight for economic sanctions against South Africa's apartheid regime and a leader on environmental issues. Earlier this week, he said "Ted Kennedy is probably going to be remembered as the greatest American senator in modern history. By way of contrast, Prime Minister Harper's office issued a one-line statement offering "sympathies and condolences to the family and friends of Senator Ted Kennedy." I much prefer the Mulroney tribute.

W.E. (Bill) Belliveau is a Shediac resident and Moncton business consultant. He can be contacted at bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com

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Saturday, August 29, 2009

The unmatched legacy of Ted Kennedy…

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