Opinion: UPDATE: Now, Caroline AND Ted Kennedy endorse Barack Obama
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(UPDATE: On Sunday the Associated Press, quoting ‘party officials,’ was the first to report that Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts would endorse Sen. Barack Obama at a news conference in Washington on Monday. As an influential party elder, Kennedy’s endorsement has been eagerly-sought and long-awaited in Democratic circles, not least for its accompanying connections to his broad national political and fundraising network.
(And its loss is a blow to the Clinton campaign, although perhaps not a surprise after Caroline Kennedy’s endorsement reported below.
(The Times’ Maria LaGanga confirmed the impending Ted Kennedy endorsement, which will come on Monday in Washington during a joint appearance at American University with his niece, Caroline. According to Times sources, Sen. Kennedy will actively campaign for Obama around the country with special emphasis on labor and Latino groups, where Kennedy is strong after his ardent advocacy of immigration reform.
(The other two big Democratic endorsements much-sought in this campaign were Sen. John Kerry and former vice president Al Gore. Kerry has already also endorsed Obama. Gore has yet to take sides, although his relationship with Hillary Clinton during their White House years was often fraught with friction.
(Sen. Clinton was in Memphis at a black church service when her spokesman, Doug Hattaway, sought to downplay the Kennedy endorsement by issuing the following statement: ‘She has a great deal of respect for Sen. Kennedy and is very proud of the endorsements she’s received from her Senate colleagues. At the end of the day, people will select a candidate based more on their merits than on their endorsements.’’)
A very, very good night for Barack Obama just got better.
Just minutes before the Illinois senator officially claimed his victory in South Carolina’s Democratic presidential primary to an adoring crowd, his campaign publicized what readers of the New York Times will learn in Sunday’s edition -- Caroline Kennedy, daughter of the president whose aura Obama has sought to capture, wants him to win.
She begins her Op-Ed article thusly: ‘Over the years, I’ve been deeply moved by the people who’ve told me they wished they could feel inspired and....
hopeful about America the way people did when my father was president. This sense is even more profound today. That is why I am supporting a presidential candidate in the Democratic primaries, Barack Obama.’
That’s music to the ears of the Obama campaign, which from the start of his White House bid has sought to cast him in the role of John F. Kennedy.
That effort received a bit of a boost this summer when the man we described at the time as ‘the most devout keeper of the assassinated president’s legacy, Theodore Sorensen,’ promoted him as Kennedy’s logical heir. But Sorensen, at this point in his long life, is known mainly to historians.
An embrace from Caroline Kennedy -- who a vast swath of the American public has watched grow from a pixieish little girl who brightened the White House to an accomplished middle-aged woman who has weathered the early deaths of her dad and brother -- is quite another matter.
Her piece also contains some backhanded slaps at Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
Kennedy extols Obama for ‘running a dignified and honest campaign.’ She writes: ‘And when it comes to judgment, Barack Obama made the right call on the most important issue of our time by opposing the war in Iraq from the beginning.’
And then there’s this, an assertion that likely will garner the most attention (and surely will cause Bill Clinton to grimace):
‘I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans.’
Her move will no doubt intensify speculation about whether her uncle, party stalwart Ted Kennedy, will come off the sidelines in the primary race. It was reported earlier this week that he was among the party heavyweights who, in private conversations, urged ex-President Clinton to soften the barbs he’s been directing at Obama -- advice that initially, at least, was ignored.
-- Don Frederick