For Kerry and Kennedy, chill is gone
Campaign puts thaw in relations
boston.com
By Glen Johnson, Globe Staff, 5/10/2003
WASHINGTON -- A few years ago, Senator John F. Kerry parked his car in a Capitol Hill space some thought was reserved for the handicapped, and an aide to his home-state colleague, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, called the newspapers to alert them. Snickers echoed through Kennedy's suite in the Russell Senate Office Building. Curses filled Kerry's quarters across the hall.
There was tension between the two offices, and at times, Kennedy and Kerry themselves. Kennedy had a reputation as the liberal lion in the Senate and the embodiment of Massachusetts politics. Kerry, in the eyes of some of Kennedy's staff, was a like-minded opportunist who rode Kennedy's coattails in Washington and Boston while pursuing his personal political agenda.
So when Kerry announced his intentions to run for president -- the office Kennedy tried to win in 1980 -- many who knew the two men expected backbiting. Sure enough, rivals whispered that Kennedy secretly supported another candidate, Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, and that any public endorsement of Kerry -- as Kennedy delivered at the National Press Club in January -- was a sham.
Today, the relationship has gone through a transformation. Not all the staff bickering has ended, but Kennedy has set a fresh tone by throwing himself into Kerry's campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in the past couple of months. Aides in both camps say the senior senator has accepted that his junior colleague has eclipsed him on the national stage, at least for the time being, and he sincerely wants his fellow Massachusetts Democrat to succeed both in the race for the nomination and against Republican George W. Bush for the presidency.
This week, Kennedy took the rare step of opening his Washington home to Kerry and inviting his friends in the labor community for dinner with the candidate. It is a constituency with which Kennedy has close ties and which might otherwise be expected to support Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, a candidate for the Democratic nomination. Kennedy is also offering to raise money for Kerry, and not only among the Democratic faithful. Kennedy is also a proven fund-raiser among some wealthy Republicans, people enamored with his political celebrity, and friends in Massachusetts, New York, and West Palm Beach, Fla.
Several times a week, Kennedy calls Kerry, often on his cellphone, offering advice on everything from campaigning in Iowa to the intricacies of health care policy, which will be the subject of a Kerry speech next week in Des Moines. Last week, Kennedy stopped by a meeting of Kerry's top fund-raisers from across the country, delivering a pep talk that left the 71-year-old sweating and the group cheering.
Stephen Hess, a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution and a longtime observer of Congress, attributed the early frostiness to Kennedy's belief that ''they have a Massachusetts lock on the presidency.''
''There was a brother who was president and another who should have been. Maybe over the years there had been a sense of John Kerry as an interloper on that territory,'' Hess said.
''Now several things have happened,'' Hess continued. ''There has been an aging process with Teddy, and he's out of the range of being a presidential contender himself. And at the same time, he is getting considerable kudos as the grand old man of the Senate.
''If John Kerry wants to be president of the United States, it can only help Ted Kennedy if he's successful,'' Hess added.
Kerry, 59, concedes there may have been staff tension in the past, but he said he and Kennedy have always enjoyed a strong personal relationship. As a candidate, he has been especially gratified by Kennedy's work on his behalf.
''From the moment I have sat down with Ted Kennedy and talked about this race, he has been nothing but energetic, spontaneous. He has been giving me help to think about things, approaching me on the floor, sharing things, willing to help whenever asked,'' Kerry said. ''I am really grateful to him.''
Kennedy was equally effusive.
''When John told me about his plans to seek the presidency, I committed to him that I'd do everything possible to help make that happen,'' the senator said. ''John has been an enormously effective leader for the people of Massachusetts and for the nation, and I've been proud to serve with him in Washington. He's running a very strong campaign and continues to fight for the issues that matter to America's families.
''I'm confident that John will win our party's nomination and ultimately beat President Bush in November 2004.''
In the history of Senate relationships, tension between legislators from the same state has not been uncommon.
From the 1930s through the 1950s, there were reports of friction between Senators Walter F. George and Richard B. Russell Jr., two Georgia Democrats. From the mid-1940s through the 1970s, there were similar stories about Senators John L. McClellan and J. William Fulbright, Democrats from Arkansas. Locally, Senators Bob Smith and Judd Gregg of New Hampshire had little to talk about after Smith briefly abandoned their Republican Party to stage an Independent run for president in 2000, according to Senate observers.
Those same people say that perhaps the most divisive relationship between home-state senators in recent memory may have been between Frank Lautenberg and Robert Torricelli, two New Jersey Democrats.
The contempt ran so deep that they barely spoke to each other during the four years their tenures overlapped, from 1996 to 2000. On one occasion in 1999, the two had an argument during a closed-door meeting of Senate Democrats.
It did not end until Torricelli allegedly threatened Lautenberg.
Lautenberg got the last laugh, though. Torricelli abandoned his reelection campaign last year after a Senate ethics reprimand; Lautenberg came out of retirement and won his former rival's seat.
Hess, who researched Senate relationships while writing ''The Ultimate Insiders: US Senators and the National Media,'' said such friction is more common between colleagues from the same party.
''They have the same constituencies and audience, people they care about,'' he said. ''It's so fascinating because they're never going to be direct opponents in a real sense, a ballot box sense, but otherwise they see themselves in competition for who's going to be king of the heap.''
Current and former aides to Kerry and Kennedy said any rivalry between the two senators often was evident not so much in what was said, but what was not.
''It usually manifested itself in public ways, in terms of Kennedy not inviting Kerry to things or Kerry not inviting Kennedy to things or Kerry not getting a speaking role at a Kennedy event or Kennedy calling Kerry only at the last minute,'' said one aide.
In part, the distance was an outgrowth of their different personalities. Kerry is reserved, often most animated when discussing history and issues such as global warming. Kennedy has a fondness for storytelling, jokes, and people with an unchecked sense of humor, aides said.
The distance between Kennedy and Kerry was still visible last spring, when Kennedy threw a similar labor dinner party at his home for Edwards. Aides conceded that Kennedy viewed Edwards as a protg, especially because of their work on health care matters, but they said Kennedy made clear his allegiance to Kerry once his colleague won reelection last fall and said he would follow through with plans to run for president. Those close to Kerry note that the senator has been a regular visitor to Kennedy's Hyannis Port home and that he and Kennedy frequently go sailing on Nantucket Sound. Kerry has also been accorded the rare courtesy of being allowed to shower in the senator's Cape home after participating in a Boston to Hyannis Port bike ride for Best Buddies, a charity for the mentally impaired that is supported by the Kennedy family.
In February, when Kerry was diagnosed with prostate cancer, one of the first calls he and his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, made after they decided to go public with the diagnosis was to Kennedy and his wife, Vickie.
A top Kerry aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said of Kennedy, ''I think his desire to see John win is sincere, and I don't think he's doing the minimum to avoid getting criticized.''
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com.
This story ran on page A1 of the Boston Globe on 5/10/2003.
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