The tributes to Edward Moore Kennedy are appearing everywhere today and I do not know if I can say anything meaningful that others have not already said or will say in the next few hours, other than what Teddy meant to me.
At first he embodied the hope for the future that remained after his brothers and Martin Luther King were killed, Lyndon Johnson split liberalism so grievously over the Vietnam War, and Richard Nixon gained the Presidency, and began the serious conservative counter-revolution by playing to racism in the South, and the evangelicals, while continuing to represent the corporate elites. That hope for a quick restoration of Camelot and a progressive presidency died at Chappaquidick in 1969. The nomination of George McGovern in 1972 was an anti-climax. He had no chance to beat Richard Nixon.
Teddy settled down to work in the Senate, and it was great work. There was a chance for progressivism again in 1976, after the self-destruction of the Nixon Administration. But, the timing was wrong. Mary Jo Kopechne was still fresh in everyone’s memory, Teddy didn’t seem like a realistic candidate, and there was no other charismatic northern Democrat to take on the mantle of liberalism. So the Party turned to Jimmy Carter, a wonderful, moral man, but a poor leader and Washington politician, who didn’t know how to mobilize people to get what he wanted out of Congress.
Teddy’s relations with Carter during the latter’s Administration, were lukewarm to say the least. Jimmy Carter pushed only incremental health care reforms where Teddy sought Medicare for All. Carter did very little to end poverty, while Teddy wanted to end the “benign neglect” of Washington toward our inner cities. Finally, while Carter pursued a vigorous energy policy, Teddy wanted him to be still more energetic. The differences between the two erupted during the run-up to the election of 1980, where Teddy undertook that most difficult of tasks challenging an incumbent president in his party’s primaries. Of course, he couldn’t make his challenge stick, and the split in the Party contributed to Ronald Reagan’s victory in 1980, and to the era, which really had begun in Carter’s Administration, of increasing faith in the efficacy of free markets, and which, much later evolved into the system of crony capitalism that we have seen in recent years. During that campaign, however, Teddy Kennedy did leave progressives with a legacy of nobility in persistent struggle. That legacy is embodied in his concession speech, written by Bob Shrum, delivered at the Democratic Convention where Jimmy Carter was nominated for a second term. In that speech, one of the finest examples of political rhetoric in American history, Kennedy ended with lines that I have reflected on again and again, because they both motivate and resonate so well with the struggle of progressives to become relevant to the American political system, once again. Of course, Teddy said:
”For me, a few hours ago, this campaign ended. For all those whose cares have been our concern: the work goes on. The cause endures. The hope still lives. And the Dream shall never die.”
It never died for him until today, as he worked through 29 more years in the Senate through center-right, centrist, and right-center Administrations. He defended the interests of “regular people” through all of that time. He defended the vision that Government can improve our lives. He did all he could to realize his dream of universal health care for all regardless of their economic condition. He worked equally hard at the problems of Education and at making life better for disabled Americans. And he did all he could to keep opportunity and hope alive for poor people and for immigrants. During this time he helped to keep the very spirit of progressivism alive. And for me, and, I think, millions of others, he embodied the idea that the work goes on; the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.
Now, today, that he is dead, we see the tributes from supporters and opponents (many of whom were friends who loved him well) alike, and from the President and the Vice President. But beyond these tributes is the idea that the work of progressivism stretches before us as it always has. We, the progressives, have lost an enormous amount of ground over the past decades and, today, the problems of this nation stretch before us in an enormous chain that threatens to destroy all that we have gained in easing human ignorance, expanding individual freedom, creating a measure of equality, and at least some safety net for the needy among us, and strengthening the rule of law. Problems of globalization, the financial system, reinventing the American economy, health care reform, environmental degradation and climate change, a rapidly declining educational system, terrorism, war, militarism, and human rights, immigration reform, civil rights and civil liberties, and Governmental Accountability. All of these beset us now and hierarchy and illegitimate authority threaten to transform the Democracy we have done so much to create into a plutocracy.
When we look upon this work and on what we have to accomplish in the coming years, and when we feel discouraged, and believe that we can’t possibly prevail; it will help us to reflect on Teddy Kennedy’s life and the simple idea: “. . . the work goes on. The cause endures. The hope still lives. And the Dream shall never die.”
(Also posted at firedoglake.com where there may be more comments)