Al Giordano, writing on his blog The Field about the possible appointment of Caroline Kennedy to take Hillary Clinton's seat in the U.S. Senate, has suggested in essence that it would reinforce the more liberal wing of the Democratic Party, replacing a Clinton (whose husband made peace with "corporate interests" during his presidency) with a Kennedy. But I'm not sure that, in any meaningful way beyond networks of people oriented to Ted Kennedy or Bill Clinton, there is a "Kennedy wing" in the Democratic Party which is more liberal than a "Clinton wing". Too much is made of left, right and center when it comes to Democrats: What unites them is paying attention to the lives and communities of real people, and taking public action to lift up our whole society -- rather than being mesmerized by party dogma that locks us into various fears and hatreds, as Republicans displayed again during the presidential campaign.
What President Kennedy represented was not some kind of canned liberalism (he was superficially criticized at the time, by the older generation of Adlai Stevenson lovers, for being too conservative). He and his family and followers in the '60s were about far more than political labels; they embodied an intelligent boldness about renewing American leadership -- in science, security through peace, civil rights, and all the other larger and liberating dimensions of our life together as Americans, and as human beings. He incarnated the spirit of leadership. I think that's what Teddy and Caroline Kennedy saw in Barack Obama. And that's what's different from Bill Clinton's way of operating, which was to take existing political beliefs and invent a way of getting elected and surviving within them. What was his vision? A "bridge to the 21st century"? Just what did that mean?
In the 1980's, Gary Hart (who was among those who had originally been propelled into political life by the example of the Kennedys) embodied that spirit of intelligent boldness, and it's unfortunate that his personal indiscretions forced him out of politics. If, as expected, he'd been elected president in '88, Bill Clinton would have stayed in Arkansas and the progressive spirit of Democrats might have been reasserted long before now. In January 2008, Gary Hart unhesitatingly endorsed Barack Obama. He saw the same thing that Teddy saw: This man will grasp the future. Obama is not only about his own political success. He's about our common success.
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