Posted on 08/26/2009 1:30:15 AM PDT by kingattax
BOSTON (Reuters) – Senator Edward Kennedy's death marks the twilight of one of America's most fabled political families, with no heirs to the Kennedy name poised to emerge with the same mix of gravitas, ambition and celebrity.
Kennedy, 77, one of the most effective lawmakers in U.S. history and the brother of assassinated President John F. Kennedy, died late on Tuesday after battling brain cancer.
He died just weeks after his sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who founded the Special Olympics and was a leading advocate for the mentally disabled.
"There seems to be no one there to pick up the torch," said Thomas Whalen, a professor of politics at Boston University.
"There doesn't seem to be someone in the next generation to carry the load here. Ted Kennedy might be it, he might be the end of the line," said Whalen, author of "Kennedy versus Lodge: The 1952 Massachusetts Senate Race" about his brother John's first race for the Senate.
Kennedy's cancer diagnosis and then his death have stirred speculation over who might succeed the third-longest serving U.S. senator, and whether a new generation could emerge from under his shadow.
Many younger Kennedys are active in civic life but none on the scale of Ted Kennedy, last of four Kennedy brothers, including John, elected president in 1960 and assassinated in 1963; and Robert, a New York senator whose presidential bid ended with his assassination in 1968.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
“There seems to be no one there to pick up the torch,”
Or take out the garbage. Good! It was all a myth anyway - And a damaging one at that.
no to dynasty in US
John-John was up there, but unfortunately his life was cut short by a plane crash. He had the gravitas, the ambition and the celebrity qualities. I don't think he would have wanted to spend a lifetime in politics anyway, and most people wouldn't blame him.
He was a wealthy “Champion of the Poor” who wouldn’t give the poor sweat off his back. Its the sweat on your back he wanted to give them.
Thats sainthood for lefties.
Boo-hoo! Someone fax me a crying towel! No one to pick up the torch and cram free-spending socialism, unilateral disarmament, illegal alien amnesty, elitism and corruption down our throats for another generation? What are we to do? BTW, if JFK, RFK, Hubert Humphrey and that whole school of Democrats were alive today, they’d be Republicans!
RIP
Ya old reprobate.
So be it. America doesn’t need dynasties, be it Kennedy, Clinton, Bush or whatever.
What about Patrick?
He has the driving record, the substance abuse, and the “do you know who I am” attitude that make him a natural successor.
Thank God. - he made the Kennedy name a joke outside of the people's republic of Massachusetts
What happened to Mary Jo’s family dynasty......
Oh...that’s right......it was cut short by a drunken liberal scumbag.....
Any info yet on which parish in Boston will be prostituting itself to honor the mass murderer with a funeral?
He would have gotten elected to high office on his name and celebrity appeal alone - I would respectfully disagree that he had the gravitas or ambition to make it so, but the media would have carried the water for him anyway.
There. I fixed it.
No legitimate ones, at least.
Maybe that drunken junkie, Patrick, will pick up the torch. The next time he crashes his car into a barricade in DC in the middle of the night he can say, “I’m on my way (hic) to a vote. And I’m (hic) torched.”
Without old Joe's booty -- gained through theft and rum-running -- the entire bunch would be, at best, nothing more than shoe salesmen.
One thing is for sure. the Kennedys will still have their $zillion$, and their “compounds” and their vacation villas, and their yachts, and none of them will ever have to work a real job or pay taxes for the rest of their stinking lives. John Jr. is the only one I respected. He at least went out and started a business.
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