Work deadlines have prevented me from watching literally a minute of the Kennedy coverage. I've also read very little, other than Tweets. So I'm sure everything's been said, but I still wanted to add my two cents.
I was a late convert to Ted. As many of you know, I was a Republican for the first 21 years or so of my life. And so I disliked Kennedy purely for ignorant ideological reasons. He was the boogeyman liberal -- the icon of the enemy.
I even saw him once at a Harvard-Yale tailgate, and he wasn't exactly an impressive specimen up close. (I'd like to think that seeing him at the tailgate made me start gradually liking him on some subconscious level).
And even after my long journey from conservative to shrill, the old ideological distaste for Kennedy lingered. I still felt the need to be able to point to someone and say, "well, I've changed but I'm no Ted Kennedy liberal," or some nonsense like that.
In time, I gradually learned more about him. And I can honestly say that, today, I revere him. To me, he embodies everything a progressive politician should be. And I'm ashamed for not recognizing it earlier.
What's most striking about Kennedy is that he dedicated his life to helping people who he had no reason to help. As russell noted in the comments yesterday, he could have had a very nice life yachting, and reading books, and traveling. But he didn't do that. He spent decades in the Senate fighting -- truly fighting -- for people who most needed help, who most needed a voice. Unlike so many legislators, he wasn't the voice of the already-enfranchised. He was, in this sense, a universal Senator for those with no champion, with no lobby. Those people were the focus of his efforts.
I also revere him as a student of politics. On some level, everyone here loves politics, and believes in it. Otherwise, you'd be doing other things with your time. It's easy, though, to wonder at time if it's all futile (see, e.g., David Simon). Revered leaders inevitably disappoint; institutional realities weigh down ideals. And as much as I love politics, it's easy to get down about it.
Kennedy, though, is one of those people who reaffirms my faith in the idea of politics. That idea being that we can choose to fight for the right things, and that our choice can eventually help people. That's what politics should be all about.
Kennedy showed it was possible. Here's a man with unapologetic and uncompromising beliefs, who channeled those beliefs through an extremely arcane legislative process to create laws that truly helped people -- people without a K Street lobby, people who he personally had no reason in the world to be helping. But he helped them anyway.
And it's not just about the dreamy abstract ideals, Kennedy would also rip you one if that's what the politics required. If that's what it took to translate these values into concrete policy. And I'd be lying if I said I didn't really enjoy that part of politics too.
The man had his faults. All of us do. And it's easy to lapse into sentimental hagiography after someone dies. But still, he deserves an enormous amount of praise. His sweat is entwined with the text of every major piece of progressive legislation since the 60s. He chose to fight for things, and, if I may, he got shit done.
And it's heartbreaking that he couldn't live to see the final triumph on health care. And I frankly wouldn't be all that surprised to see him crawl out of his grave to vote "Yea" when the time comes. But if his passing ultimately helps make universal health care a reality, then that would be a quite fitting coda indeed.
Thanks Senator -- if only everyone chose to fight so long and so hard for the right reasons...
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Josh Marshall: Time is Of the Essence
Earlier today we noted that there does not appear to be any legal impediment to Massachusetts changing its law and allowing Gov. Patrick (D) to immediately appoint a caretaker successor to Sen. Kennedy. Now the Times is reporting that the push the change the law and quickly name a successor is intensifying.
TPMtv: Ted Kennedy Takes On GOP Over Minimum Wage
Sen. Ted Kennedy speaks on the Senate floor about raising the federal minimum wage, taking the Republicans to task for trying to block the legislation.
Joe Sudbay: GOP now playing politics with Kennedy's funeral
You see, they're terribly afraid that Kennedy's death will aid passage of health care reform since it was his dream. So the GOP will destroy that dream by politicizing Kennedy's funeral.Sargent: GOPers: Key Aspect Of Kennedy’s Legacy Was Embrace Of Bipartisan Compromise
Will the Democrats preemptively fight back, will they blow the Republicans out of the water on this one? Or will we all sit back and scratch our heads in a week and say "gosh, how did we lose that one?" Paul Wellstone II - where the GOP accuses of us doing what they're actually doing, and we get the blame. Let's not forget - we still have Hitler references and gun-toting GOP constituents out there who have yet to be fully taken advantage of by the Democrats. What do I mean? Well imagine had the top progressive bloggers, during a debate on key legislation, published photos of George Bush as Hitler. Do you think the Republicans would come up with all sorts of great ideas on how to bash us and, even better, use us to destroy Democrats? There'd be a resolution condemning us on the floor of the US House and Senate faster than you can sing "proud to be an American."
What's to believe that things will be any different when the GOP tries to spin Ted Kennedy's death? We have taught the Republicans that nothing is too low, and that the dirtier they get the more we flinch. Unless the Democrats, and the White House, figure out how to stop this cycle, it's just going to get worse and worse.
With Democrats already invoking Ted Kennedy’s passing to rally the troops behind health care reform, Republicans are tentatively floating a response of sorts: Kennedy should be remembered for his willingness to embrace bipartisan compromise.
Senator Judd Gregg is already hinting at the idea. In an interview with the Boston Globe, Gregg hailed the bipartisan support for legislation he and Kennedy created together, adding that Kennedy knew how to “move the ball down the road with conservatives like myself.”
Meanwhile, Karl Rove hailed Kennedy on Fox this morning for being “willing to compromise.”
Other GOPers are floating the idea in The New York Times anonymously, in a discussion of how to navigate the politics of Kennedy’s death:
Republicans also noted that Mr. Kennedy, though an ideological liberal, was a legislative pragmatist who worked with Republicans to strike compromises on difficult subjects like health care, education and immigration. They said they saw little such reaching across the aisle in his absence.
Dems are invoking Kennedy to galvanize themselves on health care; GOPers are pointing that bipartisan compromise is a key aspect of Kennedy’s legacy. Not particularly hard to see where this is going; the battle lines are already perfectly clear.
Benen: DON'T USE KENNEDY AS AN EXCUSE FOR FAILURE...
TPM-TV: Ted Kennedy v. Nixon In 1971 Fight For Health Care ReformIt started in earnest several days ago, before we knew the state of Ted Kennedy's condition. Conservative senators like Orrin Hatch and John McCain said Kennedy's absence from the Senate this year made bipartisan health care reform less likely. As the argument goes, Kennedy didn't mind reaching out to the GOP and compromising on his principles, unlike these other Democrats. Kennedy, they say, could have gotten a deal done.
It's a weak, and borderline offensive, argument. For one thing, characterizing Kennedy as the kind of leader who sold out liberal ideals for the sake of routine compromise is just wrong. For another, Senate Dems have reached out to Republicans, and the party has made it clear it opposes reform. For conservatives to suggest Kennedy could have persuaded them to embrace the opposite position is a cheap and cowardly cop-out.
Indeed, Edward Kennedy was in the Senate for nearly five decades, and passing health care reform was the cause of his life. If senators like Hatch and McCain were seriously open to the idea of passing reform, and Kennedy really had the ability to persuade conservative lawmakers to embrace a progressive policy, it would have produced a bipartisan reform plan a long time ago. That never happened.
But as today has progressed, Republicans have been slowly but deliberately using Kennedy's passing as an excuse for failure. Reform could have passed this year, they say, if only Kennedy had been up to it.
National Journal's John Mercurio wrote today:
Worried that they'll ultimately be viewed as the party that blocked meaningful reform, [Republicans] are using Kennedy as a convenient foil. If only he had been here, they say, Kennedy would have used his magic touch to reach a meaningful compromise, bringing us on board. That sounds awfully nice, but it's still hard to believe that Republicans, 47 percent of whom believe the Democratic bill includes "death panels," would somehow roll over and obey the man they publicly demonized for decades.
Jamison Foser took this a little further.
According to McCain, had Kennedy been active in Senate negotiations, he would have made "the right concessions." And what is the key concession Republicans like McCain have been demanding? The elimination of a public option. By McCain's telling, there is no health care agreement because Senate Democrats haven't dropped the public plan like Kennedy would have.
Hatch made much the same claim on NBC's Meet the Press last Sunday, saying of Kennedy "the first thing he would have done would have been to call me and say, 'Let's work this out.' And we would work it out so that the best of both worlds would work" -- then adding "I would never go to a federal government program. If we do that, we'll bankrupt the country."
So Hatch, like McCain, claims that Kennedy would have gotten an agreement done by dropping the public plan.
Republicans may be, as Mecurio says, using Kennedy's absence to "humanize themselves" -- but they're also using it to subtly bash Senate Democrats for not dropping the public plan, as they claim Kennedy would have done. Whether that is accurate, fair, or in good taste is for others to decide. But it is the clear meaning of their statements.
For the record, Kennedy supported the public option. Indeed, there's no great mystery here -- he helped write the bill that was approved by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. If anyone wants to throw their backing to what Kennedy supported, there's his bill. It currently enjoys exactly zero GOP supporters in either chamber.
Would he have traded away the public option to garner broader support? I have no idea. But let's not ignore what we've seen -- a member of the Senate Republican leadership has said, publicly and on the record, that Democrats could produce a deficit-neutral reform bill with no public option and the GOP would still oppose it. Kennedy would have made "the right concessions"? The White House has already signaled a willingness to give away the store, and Republicans slapped the president's hand away anyway.
Republicans oppose health care reform. That's their right. They shouldn't blame Ted Kennedy's absence and death for their obstinacy.
A 1971 video of Ted Kennedy arguing for national health insurance, via The Plum Line.
Yglesias: Ted Kennedy, Deregulator
One essentially irreplaceable role that Ted Kennedy played in the United States Senate was that he was such an iconic figure of American liberalism that he had the credibility necessary to stare down Democratic-leaning interest groups when their narrow interests subverted broader progressive goals. The most recent case of this was in Kennedy’s work on the No Child Left Behind Act that substantially increased school funding and focus on the educational needs of poor and minority students, but tended to antagonize teacher’s unions.
A related story, however, comes from the now-unknown story of trucking deregulation. For decades, it was extremely burdensome for anyone to get into the business of shipping anything, because incumbent stakeholders could use the regulatory apparatus to block you from entry. The result was severely limited competition and, consequently, higher prices for just about everything. But eventually things changed:
Both the Teamsters Union and the American Trucking Associations strongly opposed deregulation and successfully headed off efforts to eliminate all economic controls. Supporting deregulation was a coalition of shippers, consumer advocates including Ralph Nader, and liberals such as Senator Edward Kennedy. Probably the most significant factor in forcing Congress to act was that the ICC commissioners appointed by Ford and Carter were bent on deregulating the industry anyway. Either Congress had to act or the ICC would. Congress acted in order to codify some of the commission changes and to limit others.
The Motor Carrier Act (MCA) of 1980 only partially decontrolled trucking. But together with a liberal ICC, it substantially freed the industry. The MCA made it significantly easier for a trucker to secure a certificate of public convenience and necessity. The MCA also required the commission to eliminate most restrictions on commodities that could be carried, on the routes that motor carriers could use, and on the geographical region they could serve. The law authorized truckers to price freely within a “zone of reasonableness,” meaning that truckers could increase or decrease rates from current levels by 15 percent without challenge, and encouraged them to make independent rate filings with even larger price changes.
A similar tale can be told about airline deregulation.
The moral of the story isn’t that “regulation is bad” but that progressive politics at its best isn’t about bigger government but about attacking privilege and power. At times that requires more government and more regulation (right now we badly need more regulation of polluters whose carbon dioxide emissions are threatening the viability of the planet) but at times the forces of privilege and power are using existing regulatory structures to re-enforce their own position. Kennedy, rightly, saw no contradiction between his record as a deregulator and his record as a champion of the little guy.
Yglesias: Ted Kennedy: Getting Things Done
Mark Schmitt has an excellent small anecdote about Ted Kennedy, illustrating the difference between a Senator who’s there on the Hill to get things done, and a Senator who’s just there to kill time and feather his bed:
As an example, early on in the period when I was working for Sen. Bill Bradley, Bradley decided to get involved in reform of the student-loan system. He wasn’t on the appropriate committee (Kennedy’s Education and Labor Committee, now known as HELP), and he had never been involved before. But as a member of the Finance Committee, he saw a way to sneak student-loan funding into a tax bill, and pay for it. While other Democrats on Education and Labor brushed us off as if we were encroaching on their domain (we were, shamelessly!), Kennedy saw it as just another opportunity to get some good accomplished.
Before we knew it, Kennedy had pulled everyone involved into his maritime-themed hideaway office (perhaps the most awe-inspiring physical space in the entire Capitol) to figure out how to get it done, and he threw himself into it — at one point calling me from the Senate floor to dictate the precise flattering language of a letter we would need to send to Sen. Robert C. Byrd to persuade him to give his permission to the unorthodox move. In the end it didn’t happen (the first President Bush vetoed the bill), and it’s not even a footnote to his legacy. It was one of hundreds, thousands of tiny moments of opportunity to make some progress, and if 99 out of 100 of those opportunities failed, he knew that the one that didn’t would at least make a difference in someone’s life.
The Senate is a strange place full of weird rules and impediments to action. The people who make it work are the people who, like Kennedy, understand what they want to do and then try to figure out ways to get it done. Congressional procedure is a real impediment to doing a lot of things, but the effective legislators are the ones who see those obstacles and start finding ways to remove them or work around them. Most folks, however, seem to just shrug and in many ways be happy to have a reason why they “can’t” do the hard work involved in changing things.
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/08/ted-kennedy-getting-things-done.php
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