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It wasn't charisma that fueled the buzz. Speechmaking so terrified Patrick that colleagues recall seeing his hands shake from across the chamber. But he was determined to win their respect--and their gratitude. When Patrick took over the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 1998, they all got to share in the fund-raising clout of the Kennedy name. Donors who gave the party $100,000 or more got a weekend at the family compound in Hyannis Port. And Patrick worked harder than anyone else ever had at the job, giving up his committee assignments, leaving leadership meetings early so he could go dial for dollars. "He was awesome," says House Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt. "Seven days a week, 18 hours a day." The result: congressional Democrats raised more than $90 million--nearly triple what they ever had before.
But the effort kept Patrick away from his district for long stretches and took its toll on his popularity. Polls last winter showed his approval ratings in Rhode Island sliding below 50% after two angry incidents became public. In March 2000, he was videotaped shoving a Los Angeles airport security guard; in August, he had an argument with a girlfriend aboard a rented yacht that brought Coast Guard intervention.
As Patrick sees it now, he has a choice. "There's no mortal blow here. It's really a question of whether I react or I respond," he told TIME. "One is steeped in self-appraisal and maturity, and one is kind of superficial and temporary. I'm responding; I'm not reacting." He left the campaign committee, shook up his staff and brought back trusted family political advisers. He became a different kind of Congressman--one who acknowledged some frailties that made him seem more human, less like a Kennedy fund-raising machine. Having gone public with the fact that he has sought therapy and taken medication to combat depression, he champions legislation to improve mental-health services. He took back his Appropriations Committee seat, and he sends home regular reports about getting new buses for the Rhode Island transit authority, dock repairs for Prudence Island and fancy digital radios for the Pawtucket police.
As Patrick redoubled his fund-raising efforts to meet a possible 2002 challenge from term-limited G.O.P. Governor Lincoln Almond, the family pitched in. Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. were hosts for a concert at Manhattan's Russian Tea Room that hauled in $100,000. A clambake at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port cleared $75,000. In March, Patrick made a surprise appearance onstage at the Providence Newspaper Guild Follies. Dressed in a sailor suit, he sang a rewrite of the Gilligan's Island theme. ("I'd asked a gal whom I had met/To take an evening cruise./Little did I know that it/Would make the evening news./And boy did I get bruised.") He joked that when he returned to Rhode Island after giving up the Democratic fund-raising job, he saw his own face on a milk carton.