So, here once again is a dispatch, from Sarah Baxter at The Times of London:
A family battle is looming to succeed Edward Kennedy as senator and claim the leadership of America’s foremost political dynasty.
While Kennedy, 77, the “liberal lion” of the Senate, is suffering from a brain tumour, jockeying has already begun between supporters of two possible candidates to replace him after his death.
His wife Victoria, 55, a lawyer from a political family, is widely expected to run for his seat, which has a special place in family lore because it was held by JohnF Kennedy before he became president in 1961.
However, former congressman Joe Kennedy, the eldest son of Robert F Kennedy, is said to regard himself as the “heir apparent”, according to a biography by Edward Klein serialised in Vanity Fair.
“He is nothing if not aggressive,” said a family friend. “Anybody who tries to get between him and Ted’s Senate chair is in for a fight.”
In Ted Kennedy: The Dream That Never Died, Klein writes that Vicki, Kennedy’s second wife, has struggled to be accepted by the clan and is “seen by all as an interloper”.
Joe reportedly “vied with Vicki over who was in charge” of his uncle when Ted Kennedy was hospitalised. He appalled some nursing staff by ordering in a “feast of lobster, clams and shrimp”.
The senator had hoped that his niece Caroline Kennedy,a prominent supporter of Barack Obama, would be granted Hillary Clinton’s vacant Senate seat in New York, but the plan backfired.
As opposition to Caroline’s candidacy grew, her mood worsened. “Mom, you are above all this,” her elder daughter Rose, 19, allegedly said. Caroline withdrew that same day.
Joe Kennedy dismissed the reports of his ambition as “gossip”.
“Whatever rumours and gossip may be out there, I can assure you that every member of the Kennedy family is pulling together behind our uncle, whom we all love dearly,” he said.
As I read this story I wondered: Hey, don't the people of Massachusetts have anything to say about this? Don't they have to vote on this? Then I realized that this was a really, stupid thought. I mean, why would the voters of Massachusetts have any say in this at all? After all, this Senate seat has been held by the Kennedy family for more than sixty years! The family treats it as its own personal domain. And the voters pretty much stand by and allow it to happen. It's a virtual monarchy there. How sad!
No comments:
Post a Comment