Of course this will work. They should just officially divide Massachusetts senators into the Senator from Massachusetts and the Senator from the Kennedy Compound.
Ted Kennedy: I'd like wife to take seat
BY IAN BISHOP
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Thursday, May 22nd 2008, 4:00 AM
Ted Kennedy has made clear to confidants that when his time is up, he wants his Senate seat to stay in the family - with his wife, Vicki.
Multiple sources in Massachusetts with close ties to the liberal lion say his wife of 16 years has long been his choice to continue carrying the family flame in the Senate. Kennedy won the seat in 1962; his brother John held it from 1953 to 1960.
"There's no question that he'd like Vicki to continue in his seat," said one Massachusetts Democrat with ties to the Camelot clan who spoke to Kennedy recently, before his health crisis.
"She's smart, and smart politically."
The 54-year-old Victoria Reggie Kennedy, a former hotshot Washington lawyer, is a Louisiana native and the daughter of a politically active judge.
She was hailed for holding the family together when John F. Kennedy Jr. was killed in a plane crash in 1999.
By favoring his wife, Kennedy, 76, is bypassing his late brother Robert Kennedy's eldest son, Joe, a former congressman.
Joe Kennedy has been maligned publicly for a messy divorce and close ties with Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez, who assists his Boston-based fuel company for the poor.
Under current Massachusetts law, his successor for the rest of his term, which ends in 2012, would be picked by special election. State rules that allowed the governor to pick a temporary replacement were changed in 2004 when John Kerry was the presidential nominee and the Democratic state legislature feared then-GOP Gov. Mitt Romney would appoint a fellow Republican if Kerry won.
Political pros, however, say a dying Kennedy's endorsement of Vicki would likely carry enormous weight with state voters.
It's not yet clear how long he will stay in the Senate while battling a usually fatal cancer.
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