washington, August 27: If you were a political reporter in Washington in the late summer of 1994, you’d have found yourself travelling with surprising frequency to Massachusetts. The interest in a certain state-wide election was morbid in a way. After three decades serving in the US Senate, Ted Kennedy was locked in battle with a clean-cut former businessman named Mitt Romney. And it looked as if he might lose.
We had our reasons. I still recall watching Kennedy on the trail. He walked with a shuffle and his cheeks looked like sponges filled with booze and the other excesses of a second bachelorhood. He had the air of a man struggling, who had had enough – of the burdens of his family name, of the expectations that had been placed on him, and of all the years of scandal, followed by tragedy, followed by more scandal.
It seemed to us that most Americans might have had enough too. JFK’s widow, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, had died earlier that year. All that seemed to remain of the so-called Camelot, the quasi-royal clan spawned by Joseph and Rose Kennedy in Boston, was Teddy; and his flaws seemed to be catching up with him. He was tainted and exhausted. Nationally, his approval rating was a sad 22 per cent.
–Agencies