Ted Kennedy would remember where he was in 2007 — aboard the Mya in Tarpaulin Cove, a favorite summer swimming spot in the Elizabeth Islands off Cape Cod — when the conversation turned to Sen. Barack Obama’s nascent presidential campaign. His niece Caroline and her children were on board, and Ted was stirred by their enthusiasm. In the weeks to come he would hear from others in the younger generations of Kennedys, who told him how inspired they were by the Obama campaign, with its promise of generational change, racial justice, and liberal ideals.
Kennedy was struck as well by an intuitive feeling that the wind had changed: that after thirty years of conservative alignment, the time in the cycle for progressive change had arrived once more. He could accelerate the cycle by endorsing Obama, or impede it by opting for a safer choice. This could be his final opportunity to reshape the future. He asked himself, “How much longer do you have?”
Kennedy was struck as well by an intuitive feeling that the wind had changed: that after thirty years of conservative alignment, the time in the cycle for progressive change had arrived once more.
Kennedy had recruited Obama for the Labor Committee in 2004 and worked with him, sometimes uneasily, on immigration reform. The younger man had come to Kennedy in the spring of 2006 and told him he was thinking of running for president. Like Robert Kennedy, Obama was restless in the Senate, and Reid and other Democratic leaders, recognizing this, had suggested he run sooner rather than later.
