Kennedy Passes

It was a year ago this week that I sat in Denver's Pepsi Center at the Democratic National Convention watching Sen. Ted Kennedy slowly make his way to the stage after an emotional tribute.

There was a video, with lots and lots of yachting, and lauditory remarks by John Kennedy's daughter Caroline. But the moment that everyone waited for was to see whether the cancer-stricken icon would make an appearance. When he did, the arena exploded in cheers and applause. It was quite a moment, even for a cynical hack who has seen a lot of political stagecraft.

It turned out to be his last big curtain call.

I don't have any special personal insight into Sen. Kennedy. He campaigned in Iowa on behalf of Democrats, including John Kerry, but I never got a chance to interview him. He clearly was an impressive figure, even from a distance.

The first political campaign I really remember in detail as a kid was the battle between Kennedy and President Carter for the Democratic nomination in 1980. I was nine going on 10 and didn't understand it all, but knew it was a big deal. It was the stuff of many grown-up arguments.

Growing up in the 70s and 80s, Ted Kennedy was both a political icon and a cultural parody. Phil Hartman used to play him beautifully on Saturday Night Live, usually with drink in hand. Jokes were plentiful.

But he was a Kennedy. And as a young history buff growing up at a time when John's and Robert's memories and violent ends were still relatively fresh in the national conscience, that made him intriguing. When I was asked to speak at commencement my senior year, I read Kennedy speeches for inspiration. Ted Kennedy's 1980 convention speech was one I read and re-read.

 Now that he's gone, I wonder if the remarkable hold his family has had for so long on America's attention will survive much longer. There is no other figure left in the Kennedy compound of his stature. The Kennedy mystique, already fading, may now go out with the boomers who lit the torch.

But for the next several days, Kennedy fascination will be in high gear as the tributes pour in. Health care was his signature issue, and I'll be interested to see how his death may alter the course of the debate.

Here's the column I wrote last August from the convention about the Kennedys' continued influence on Democratic politics:

DENVER -- Tom Harrington was a kid attending a Jesuit high school in Omaha when Robert Kennedy came to town to campaign in 1968.

"The Jesuits told us they'd let us out of school if we went down to hear Bobby Kennedy speak," said Harrington, a 2008 Democratic National Convention delegate from Ames. "That was my first political event. I got hooked on the Democratic Party and have been a Democrat ever since."

For all the talk of Barack Obama's remarkable youth movement, this convention hall is still filled to the rafters with folks like Harrington. And that's one big reason why that this week of change, change, change also has been wrapped in Kennedys and Camelot.

From night one, when a tribute to ailing U.S. Sen Ted Kennedy left few dry eyes, to Obama's outdoor stadium spectacle last night -- a rerun of JFK's 1960 Los Angeles Coliseum acceptance address -- the Kennedy mystique still holds a trance over this party.

Obama-Kennedy comparisons are rampant, both for the Illinois senator's trailblazing, barrier-breaking campaign and his youthful, inspiring style. Left-leaning baby boomers who came of age with the Kennedys, and who lived through a series of less-than-inspiring presidents since, are clamoring for a return to the tingle of Camelot.

"People try to shortchange inspiration. And they try to say Barack doesn't have substance because he has this appeal," Harrington said. "But I think people want that. They want someone they can look up to and trust who will point the way to the future."

But as I sat in the Pepsi Center Monday night, I couldn't help but wonder whether this Democratic Party of 2008, with its quest to be the lunch bucket-carrying harbinger of a brighter future, really benefits in Middle America from images of the Kennedys yachting around the cape. I mean, how many houses do they have?

Iowa Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, concedes that conventions have contradictions.

"I get that. I feel some of that. There's some pretty fancy meals we have here at the convention, pretty fancy receptions. This is a pretty rarefied atmosphere," said Gronstal, who insists he's eating that food with hands calloused by knocking on doors in his district.

Sure, both parties have icons who are revered, flaws and all. Ronald Reagan was not a perfect president by any means. History is an important bond for party members.

But isn't it tougher for Democrats, this time around, to argue that John McCain is living in the past, still fighting Vietnam and railing on Woodstock, as they still marvel at black-and-white news reels of themselves?

State Rep. Ro Foege, a delegate from Mount Vernon, doesn't see a problem. It's about the ideals, he argues, not yachts or nostalgia.

"They've always been an inspiration for what can we do for our country, what we can do for our community. I've tried to live my life around that precept," said Foege, a social worker, who tried and failed with his Wartburg College classmates to make JFK their commencement speaker in 1960. Lutheran clergy at the school disapproved of Kennedy's Catholicism, he said.

And besides, says Dick Meyers, a delegate from Iowa City and former state lawmaker, Iowans don't get stars in their eyes when it comes to politicians, even Kennedys.

Myers cast an absentee ballot for John Kennedy in 1960 from a border control post on the German-Czech frontier. But when Teddy Kennedy challenged Jimmy Carter in 1980, Myers stuck with Carter in Iowa's caucuses.

"We don't necessarily look at politicians like some sort of godlike image or superstar. No, it's a pretty normal thing in Iowa. We're smug about it," Myers said.

 Todd Dorman's column will appear daily during the Democratic National Convention. Contact the writer at todd.dorman@gazcomm.com

 And here's the text of Kennedy's speech at last year's convention:

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Caroline.

My fellow Democrats, my fellow Americans, it is so wonderful to be here.

And nothing -- nothing is going to keep me away from this special gathering tonight.

I have come here tonight to stand with you to change America, to restore its future, to rise to our best ideals, and to elect Barack Obama President of the United States.

As I look ahead, I am strengthened by family and friendship. So many of you have been with me in the happiest days and the hardest days. Together we have known success and seen setbacks, victory, and defeat. But we have never lost our belief that we are all called to a better country and a newer world. And I pledge to you -- I pledge to you that I will be there next January on the floor of the United States Senate when we begin the great test.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.

For me this is a season of hope -- new hope for a justice and fair prosperity for the many, and not just for the few -- new hope.

And this is the cause of my life -- new hope that we will break the old gridlock and guarantee that every American -- north, south, east, west, young, old -- will have decent, quality health care as a fundamental right and not a privilege.

We can meet these challenges with Barack Obama. Yes, we can, and finally, yes, we will. Barack Obama will close the book on the old politics of race and gender and group against group and straight against gay.

And Barack Obama will be a Commander-in-Chief who understands that young Americans in uniform must never be committed to a mistake, but always to a mission worthy of their bravery.

We are told that Barack Obama believes too much in an America of high principle and bold endeavor, but when John Kennedy thought of going to the moon, he didn't say, "It's too far to get there. We shouldn't even try." Our people answered his call and rose to the challenge, and today an American flag still marks the surface of the moon.

Yes, we are all Americans. This is what we do. We reach the moon. We scale the heights. I know it. I've seen it. I've lived it. And we can do it again.

There is a new wave of change all around us, and if we set our compass true, we will reach our destination -- not merely victory for our Party, but renewal for our nation.

And this November the torch will be passed again to a new generation of Americans, so with Barack Obama and for you and for me, our country will be committed to his cause. The work begins anew. The hope rises again. And the dream lives on.