Tomorrow night, we'll learn the identity of Ted Kennedy's successor in the U.S. Senate. Or, actually, we'll learn the identity of his successor's successor.
Eager to provide the White House with a 60th vote for health care this fall, the overwhelmingly Democratic Massachusetts legislature voted to change the state's succession law just after Kennedy's death Read More
The final day of Michael Dukakis’ final—and most improbable, unconventional and just plain bizarre—campaign for political office began on a bad note Wednesday morning.
Influential Democrats in Washington, reacting to The Boston Globe’s endorsement of Dukakis for an interim Senate appointment a day earlier, had fought back by telling The New York Read More
But she Read More
That’s probably the reaction of many Massachusetts Republicans to the news that Andy Card, best known as George W. Bush’s chief of staff for five years, may soon join the special election race to fill Ted Kennedy’s vacant Senate seat.
Card, 62, actually has a long history in Read More
All hell broke loose at the Hachette Book Group building last week when The New York Times published a story detailing some of the most newsworthy bits contained in the late Ted Kennedy’s forthcoming memoir, True Compass. A spokeswoman for the paper said Times reporters had purchased multiple copies of the book at a bookstore Read More
Joe Kennedy, the son of Bobby who was marked as a future statewide candidate in Massachusetts from the instant he claimed a House seat in 1986, just took himself out of the running for his Uncle Ted’s vacant Senate seat.
The move, not a major surprise to those who have followed the 56-year-old Read More
It seems that Ted Kennedy’s death has already changed the nature of the debate over health care reform—but not in a way that necessarily changes the outcome.
As expected, Democrats have sought to use the emotions unleashed by the passing of a man who called universal health care the cause of Read More
One of the more fascinating byproducts of the political upheaval unleashed by Ted Kennedy’s death could be an unexpected—and brief—return to the public stage for Michael Dukakis.
The former Massachusetts governor’s name has been widely circulated this week as a possible interim successor to the late senator—someone who would hold the seat Read More
Health care advocates are trying to use the passing of Ted Kennedy to help galvanize support for the stalled health care legislation in Washington.
One conservative pundit told me today that the effort to associate the "liberal lion" with a bill that is already giving Republicans and moderate Democrats pause will further polarize Read More
Ted Kennedy's death has several immediate political implications.
One is the question of health care strategy for Democrats in the U.S. Senate. Without Kennedy, Democrats will only have 59 votes—one short of the 60 needed to kill Republican-led filibusters.
This would seem, then, to strengthen the case for using reconciliation—the Read More
Joe and Rose Kennedy had four sons, but only Ted made it past middle age. We can only imagine what a 75-year-old John or Bobby might look like, but Ted escaped—barely and not at all cleanly—the tragedy that claimed his brothers in their prime.
So we got to watch as the inevitabilities Read More
Here's Christine Quinn talking about Ted Kennedy on NY1.
Talk of the so-called “upside” of the recession can sound like warm-and-fuzzy wishful thinking, but when it comes to increased volunteerism, New Yorkers, and all Americans, will soon find it easier to put their good intentions, and free time, into action. This week Ted Kennedy watched as Barack Obama signed into law the Edward M. Read More
In the wake of last year's marathon Democratic primary season and the procedural controversies it produced, it's no surprise that the party has chartered a blue-ribbon commission to recommend changes for the 2012 process.
This is hardly the first time Democrats have sought such an overhaul; in fact, it was once a quadrennial event. Read More
On Election Day in 1960, my family placed a hand lettered sign in our living room window on East 59th street in Brooklyn that read “Kennedy for President”. A few months later, as a seven year old boy, I remember watching President Kennedy on our black and white television ask Read More
