Courage in more than name only
THE KENNEDY NAME inspires, haunts, and can still overshadow Massachusetts politics and politicians. It is happening right now to US senator and presidential candidate John F. Kerry. Day to day, the new political order represented by Republican Governor Mitt Romney may dominate the Massachusetts political stage. But then, the old Democratic establishment gathers at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, as it did last Friday night. The power brokers from years gone by are drawn by Jack's brother and his daughter, Caroline, who were there to preside over the dedication and renaming of the Kennedy School forum in honor of John F. Kennedy Jr.
The black-and-white newsclips of a long-dead president play again. There are video tributes to a handsome son who charmed, even if he never quite overwhelmed, before his own untimely death. Sentiment washes tear-bright over the room, just as sunlight washed over Washington at Jack Kennedy's inauguration.
"Now, their names will be linked forever -- son and father -- forum and school. To see their names side by side is to think of all they meant to us, how they inspired us, and how very much we loved them both," says the brother and uncle, Senator Edward M. Kennedy. His voice quavers in a way that calls to mind all the sad family moments that led that same voice to quaver in the past. It is hard to look at him and not think about his direct link to Camelot and tragedy.
At the same time Kennedy was memorializing the Kennedy name once again, he was taking on President Bush more forcefully than any Democrat running for president. He called the Bush administration's war with Iraq a "fraud," and the product of a "bankrupt policy." After Bush labeled Kennedy's words "uncivil," Kennedy's office issued a statement which said: "For the sake of our troops, it's time for this administration to speak honestly about its failures in Iraq. Many Americans share my views, and I regret the president considers them uncivil."
The courage to do what's right. That is Kerry's presidential campaign slogan. Right now, it is a phrase that embraces Kennedy more accurately -- but damns him, too.
As he has done many times before, Kennedy showed political courage when he called President Bush's war with Iraq a "fraud." He showed political courage a year ago when he voted against the resolution authorizing war with Iraq. But although the senior senator from Massachusetts can challenge a president with his vote and rhetoric, he can never run for president himself for a deadly simple reason. He did not have the courage to do what was right when his car ran off a Chappaquiddick bridge in 1969 and Mary Jo Kopechne died.
That's reality, a reality that forever derailed Kennedy's presidential aspirations, as it should. But it does not forever derail his ability to speak political truth, as he is doing now about Iraq. He gave the answer Kerry should have given at the last debate between Democratic presidential hopefuls, when he was asked if Bush misled Congress and the public on the reason for the war.
Where does it all leave candidate Kerry? Where he has always been in Massachusetts, at Kennedy's side and in his shadow. The two are scheduled to campaign together on Saturday in Iowa, where liberal activists will no doubt welcome Kennedy and his strong anti-Bush message. Kennedy can energize the liberal party base in a way that Kerry has so far failed to accomplish. But does Kennedy-inspired energy automatically translate into Kerry caucus votes?
That is, no doubt, the hope and expectation of Kerry strategists like Bob Shrum and others who are, first and foremost, Kennedy believers. Every national campaign that runs out of Massachusetts is propelled by the longing for another Camelot, for the glory, the power, and even the pathos. The baby boomers who grew up on the New Frontier have one more shot to get their man to the White House. The 2004 campaign could be their last frontier.
They must know, don't they? They must know there is more to Camelot than the initials "JFK."
Joan Vennochi's e-mail address is vennochi@globe.com.
