KARL'S GHOST STORY:

The Dems' Nor'easter: Kerry and Kennedy: Together at Last (James Ridgeway , February 4 - 10, 2004, Village Voice)

Just as Wesley Clark is spooked by the ghosts of Bill and Hillary Clinton, John Kerry has Ted Kennedy hanging over his shoulder. He obviously is not Kennedy's boy, but most people won't see it that way and think of the junior senator from Massachusetts as Teddy's last hurrah, the last link in the Kennedy legacy.

And the contest would pit the two distinctly New England families—Kennedy and Bush—against each another, in a battle between Kennedy's tired liberalism versus Bush's mix of Keynesian defense economics embedded in the moral crusades of the Christian right.

For many, the best evidence of the Kennedy-Kerry ties was Ted's words of support in Iowa. But the Kennedys have helped Kerry in various ways. The senior senator has attended fundraisers in D.C., made telephone calls on Kerry's behalf, journeyed to Iowa and New Hampshire, and stumped for Kerry in Michigan and Arizona and New Mexico. His son Patrick, a congressman from Rhode Island, shifted his backing to Kerry when Gephardt quit the race. On a nuts-and-bolts level, when Kerry fired Jim Jordan, his campaign manager, Kennedy loaned the junior senator Mary Beth Cahill, his chief of staff. She in turn hired Stephanie Cutter, Kennedy's press secretary, who had been working at the Democratic National Committee. Kennedy told The Boston Globe he had nothing to do with hiring Cahill; that idea came from ex-New Hampshire governor Jeanne Shaheen.

Boy, how will Karl Rove ever hang the Kennedy-liberal label on John Kerry?

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 4, 2004 01:16 PM