'The torch will be passed again,' Kennedy vows to jubilant convention

DENVER - Senator Edward M. Kennedy made an emotion-charged appearance last night at the launch of the Democratic National Convention, braving his malignant brain tumor to deliver an impassioned speech for Barack Obama and bringing cheering delegates to their feet and many to tears.

Looking triumphantly into a sea of "Kennedy" signs, the 76-year-old lawmaker declared: "I come here tonight to stand with you to change America, to restore its future, to rise to its best ideals, and to elect Barack Obama president of the United States.

"Nothing, nothing is going to keep me away from this special gathering tonight," Kennedy said, drawing the first of many huge cheers.

"And I pledge to you that I will be there next January on the floor of the United States Senate, when we begin to write the next great chapter of American progress.

The speech was a surprise for convention-goers, who were unsure whether he would be well enough to address them. Kennedy leaned slightly on a stool, and his hair appeared thin at the crown, but the message of universal healthcare, prosperity, and justice for "the many, not the few" was vintage Kennedy.

"For me, this is a season of hope," he said. "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, and west, young and old - will have decent, quality, affordable healthcare as a fundamental right and not a privilege.

"The torch will be passed again to a generation of Americans," Kennedy said, his voice straining slightly, echoing the era of his late brother's presidency, cut short by assassination in 1963. "The work begins anew. The hope rises again, and the dream lives on."

Shouts of "Teddy! Teddy!" nearly drowned out his words.

The Democratic stalwart lauded Obama as the 21st-century heir to the legacy his brother did not live to complete.

"We are told that Barack Obama believes too much in an America of high purpose and bold endeavor," Kennedy said. "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 to rise to the challenge, and today, an American flag still marks the surface of the moon," Kennedy said.

"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."

Friends said the longtime champion of civil rights had been determined to attend the convention, despite his illness, to be part of the historic week officially making Obama the first black major party nominee for president. But Kennedy waited until his Boston doctors gave him final clearance before boarding a jet Sunday for the journey to Denver, and he had a precautionary checkup at a local hospital after he arrived.

As late as yesterday afternoon, it was still undecided if the senator would be able to make the speech he had practiced back at Cape Cod, a Kennedy associate said.

After the speech - which concluded with the blaring of the song "Still the One" - an emotional Representative Patrick Kennedy, Democrat of Rhode Island, said he was overwhelmed at his father's unexpected appearance.

"He kicked the convention off in a way that passes the torch to a new generation of Americans, and put it in historical perspective in a way that only he could, having been at his brother's side in 1960," the younger Kennedy said.

The Massachusetts delegates were ebullient at seeing their friend and colleague, who has been absent from Capitol Hill since his diagnosis in late May, except for a quick and dramatic visit to Washington last month to cast the deciding vote on a Medicare measure Kennedy had championed.

"It was spectacular," said Representative James McGovern, Democrat of Worcester. "I love him. I wish he was running for president." Representative Bill Delahunt, Democrat of Quincy, said Kennedy's speech "was a reminder of how good we were, and how good we can be once more."

Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts said in an interview that Kennedy's resolve to attend the convention was another milestone in his "extraordinary record for nearly 50 years of public life of trying to lift others up." Patrick, who left the convention to return home for the funerals of two Bay State soldiers, one killed in Iraq and the other in Afghanistan, said of Kennedy: "His presence alone is a huge lift to all the people in that hall and for all the people watching."

Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of President Kennedy, opened the tribute to her "Uncle Teddy" with a personal address about the man who she said was an inspiration to her. An eight-minute video featured Kennedy and his family sailing - a favorite activity of the senator's - and included citizens lauding Kennedy's work on literacy, funding for body armor for US troops, stem-cell research, and Americorps, a federal volunteer program.

Democrats said Kennedy's presence would help to heal fissures in the party stemming from discontent among supporters of New York Senator Hillary Clinton, who lost the nomination to Obama in a protracted, sometimes bitter primary race. Steve Grossman, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said that just as Kennedy's January endorsement of Obama gave the young Illinois senator an establishment stamp of approval, Kennedy's appearance last night reminded delegates and voters of the breadth of support Obama has attracted.

"He knows that his personal imprimatur was a defining moment in the Obama campaign," Grossman said.

Convention-goers predicted that the man who divided his party in 1980 by challenging President Carter for the nomination - then accepted his loss by saying, "the dream shall never die" - can play an historic role this year in healing the current wounds.

"The theme of this convention is going to be creating a family out of a politically fractured crowd," said Bob Graham, a former Democratic senator from Florida. "Senator Kennedy will help cement" the Democratic family, Graham said.

Former representative Jim Leach, an Iowa Republican who also spoke at the convention last night, said Kennedy's lengthy history of addressing conventions, some of them contentious, left him better placed than anyone.

"All political parties have divisions, both philosophical and political," Leach said. "Teddy is unifying in both."

Friends expressed concern whether Kennedy was taking a medical risk by making the journey. Because the senator completed a series of radiation and chemotherapy treatments late last month, his immune system has been compromised. Those close to Kennedy are leery about having him around large crowds.

High-altitude destinations such as mile-high Denver can be troublesome for cancer patients, said Dr. Deepa Subramaniam, director of the Brain Tumor Center at Georgetown University's Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. The drop is pressure can cause a swelling in the brain, possibly aggravating swelling that may already exist from the tumor or from surgery to remove the growth, said Subramaniam, who is not treating Kennedy.

Cancer patients can also be at an elevated risk for blood clots during an airline flight. But like other passengers, they can move their toes and walk to reduce the risk, she said.

"I don't limit my patients at all," Subramaniam said. "If patients want to travel, I never tell them to hold off just because they have a tumor or they're on treatment. Life is precious."

Steve Smith of the Globe staff contributed to this report from Boston.