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Dynasties gone nasty

US elections 2008: Ted Kennedy's renunciation of the Clintons is a sour end to a beneficial political alliance

On an August day in 1993, off the coast of Martha's Vineyard, Ted Kennedy cemented a political alliance with Bill and Hillary Clinton that would last for nearly 15 years, through Kennedy's own near-defeat, the Republican revolution and President Clinton's impeachment.

As recounted in Adam Clymer's 1999 biography of Kennedy, the three - along with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and her companion, Maurice Tempelsman - went sailing at a moment when it looked like the Clintons were on the verge of winning a national health-insurance bill, Kennedy's longstanding dream. Clymer describes Kennedy as "almost boyishly eager to be with the Clintons" that day.

Now it's over. It began with Kennedy's endorsement of Barack Obama earlier this year. But these things happen in politics. The game is played, the winner and loser are declared, and frayed relationships are renewed, even if they're never quite the same. (Note: I am not related to Ted Kennedy.)

Thus it was of far more significance when Kennedy decided last week to throw Hillary Clinton over the side of the yacht once and for all. In an interview with Al Hunt of Bloomberg Television, Kennedy said Obama should not pick her as his running mate because Obama needs someone who "is in tune with his appeal for the nobler aspirations of the American people." Kennedy added: "If we had real leadership - as we do with Barack Obama - in the number two spot as well, it'd be enormously helpful."

Wow. Kennedy, through his staff, tried to backpedal. But Illinois congressman Rahm Emanuel, a former aide to Bill Clinton, was having none of it, calling Kennedy's words a "gratuitous attack".

Why did Kennedy do it? It's hard to say. It does seem rather spur-of-the-moment; if it had been calculated, he wouldn't be trying to take it back. Still, he's made it clear - through his staff, if not directly - that he's been supremely unhappy about the tone of the Clintons' campaign, especially with regard to race.

When Kennedy endorsed Obama, he allowed it to be known that he was angry over Bill Clinton's racially-charged language. So it probably isn't a coincidence that Kennedy's remarks to Al Hunt followed Hillary Clinton's comment that she could better appeal to "hard-working Americans, white Americans."

The Clintons and Kennedy might be described as allies in scandal. Consider what happened in 1994, when Kennedy, running for re-election to the Senate, was being threatened by a handsome young businessman named Mitt Romney. Overnight, decades of sleaze - from the death of Mary Jo Kopechne at Chappaquiddick to a night of debauchery in Palm Beach, Florida, that ended in rape charges for his nephew William Kennedy Smith (who was later acquitted) - had seemingly caught up to Kennedy.

As Clymer notes, the Clintons raised $1m for Kennedy that season, and the then-president hailed Kennedy at an event that the Boston Globe described as "a hot, loud Democratic rally complete with partisan punchlines." In the end, Kennedy easily defeated Romney.

Kennedy, in turn, remained a Clinton loyalist after the Republicans took over Congress following the 1994 elections, and stayed close by the president's side during the Monica Lewinsky scandal and the subsequent impeachment drama of 1998 and '99. "You couldn't have a better friend," Clymer quotes Clinton as saying of Kennedy. "I mean, he is loyal. People have been loyal to him, and understanding, and he's had to ask for forgiveness a time or two. And so he gives as good as he's gotten on that."

Maybe it's as simple as this: There's nothing the Kennedys and the Clintons can do for each other anymore. Bill Clinton launched his public career by shaking John Kennedy's hand on the White House lawn. But, this time around, it's Obama - young, cool and cerebral - who has that Kennedy appeal.

A lot of Democrats have been pushing an Obama-Clinton ticket as a way out of the current mess. Kennedy, in his blunderbuss manner, may have been pointing out the futility of a ticket whose junior partner would, in so many ways, be stuck in the political wars of the 1990s.

In 1980, Kennedy suffered his own embarrassing defeat for the presidency, yet went on to carve out a productive career in the Senate. Perhaps he can help Hillary Clinton to do the same. That is, if they can find a way to speak to each other again.

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