Ted Kennedy

BOSTON - Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the liberal lion of the Senate and haunted bearer of the Camelot torch after two of his brothers fell to assassins' bullets, has died at his home in Hyannis Port after battling a brain tumor. He was 77.

For nearly a half-century in the Senate, Kennedy was a steadfast champion of the working class and the poor, a powerful voice on health care, civil rights, and war and peace. To the American public, though, he was best known as the last surviving son of America's most glamorous political family, the eulogist of a clan shattered again and again by tragedy.

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In the days since Ted Kennedy’s death, the news programs have shown and re-shown the unforgettable ending of his 1980 Democratic convention speech — the passage from Tennyson and the beautiful final lines: “The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.”

But if you go back earlier into the heart of that speech, you see how bold Kennedy’s agenda really was. His central argument was for a policy of full employment. Government should provide a job for every able-bodied American.

His next big goal was what he called “reindustrialization.” The computer revolution was just getting under way, but Kennedy called on government to restore the industrial might of America’s cities.

The third big goal was national health insurance. “Let us insist on real control over what doctors and hospitals can charge,” Kennedy cried.

The speech was radical, and he could have gone back to the Senate, content to luxuriate in his own boldness. He could have excoriated his opponents for their villainy and given speeches about dreams that would never come true.

But Kennedy became something else. He became a compromiser. He became an incrementalist.

Those words have negative connotations. But they shouldn’t. Kennedy never abandoned his ambitious ideals, but his ability to forge compromises and champion gradual, incremental change created the legacy everybody is celebrating today: community health centers, the National Cancer Institute, the Americans With Disabilities Act, the Meals on Wheels program, the renewal of the Voting Rights Act and the No Child Left Behind Act.