Another Ted Kennedy opens the door for politics?

graywarrior

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Mon Sep-14-09 06:16 PM
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Another Ted Kennedy opens the door for politics?

Edited on Mon Sep-14-09 06:19 PM by graywarrior

Ted Kennedy Jr., the oldest son of the late senator Edward Kennedy, answered with an intriguing "maybe" this morning when USA TODAY asked whether he'd be interested in following his famous father (and his younger brother, Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I.) into politics.

Out promoting their father's just-released memoir, True Compass, the senator's sons did nothing to discourage speculation about the potential for another Ted Kennedy in politics.

"Maybe I'll run for public office. I haven't crossed that bridge yet," Ted Jr. said. "But I think my father's message to me growing up was that you don't necessarily need to run for public office in order to make a difference. The important thing is to find a way to give back to our communities. That's the lesson I learned from dad."

His brother Patrick, who once headed the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, opined that Ted Jr. "will be the best candidate in the world when his instincts tell him to go for it." The congressman laughingly said an announcement might be "a few years off," but he added, "I'm going to be laying the groundwork for him now nationally."

He and Ted Jr. chuckled at this but left the door wide open, as the political wiseguys like to say. Asked his next move, Ted said, referring to his father's memoir, "I'm going back and reread this book -- see if I can get some more inspiration out of it."

Running for his father's Massachusetts Senate seat, which will be filled by a special election in January, does not appear to be an option. Ted Jr. lives in Connecticut, where one of his father's best friends, Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd, is in a tough re-election battle his year. The state's other senator, independent Joe Lieberman, next faces the voters in 2012. Ted Jr. lives in the congressional district of veteran Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro.

"Medium Ted," as his father called him (Ted Jr. has a son whom the family dubbed "Little Ted") wowed a basilica full of political pros last month with the eulogy he delivered for his father. A story he told about his father helping him to climb a snowy hill shortly after the younger Kennedy had a leg amputated because of cancer has become a battle cry for Democrats in the health care debate.

"We're going to climb that hill together, even if it takes us all day," former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle, a key adviser to President Obama on the health care debate, declared in a speech last week, borrowing the words the younger Kennedy remembered his father using to urge him on that day.

The late senator's namesake is 47, married and the father of two children. Trained as a lawyer, he founded his own investment company, the Marwood Group, which he runs in New York City.He's shown here in Getty Images photo, wiping away a tear at his father's funeral.

http://blogs.usatoday.com/onpolitics/2009/09/another-ted-kennedy-opens-the-door-for-politics.html