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Ted Kennedy carried off his coup so neatly that it appeared to be the product of Machiavellian planning and minute organization, hallmarks of all Kennedy campaigns. He has, however, the capacity to operate spontaneously. He decided late to make the race, announced his candidacy just four days before the secret ballot in the party's caucus, and then moved with astonishing speed. Yet the process that got him to the point of decision was long and agonizing.
While Jack and then Bobby Kennedy were the senior partners of the combine, Ted was able to grow to political maturity at his own pace. He largely overcame the princeling syndrome that plagued him at the beginning of his Senate career. It was most pungently expressed in 1962, during his campaign for the unexpired portion of John Kennedy's Senate term, when he debated his opponent in the Democratic primary on TV. Edward McCormack, state attorney general of Massachusetts and nephew of House Speaker John McCormack, rasped: "If your name was simply Edward Moore instead of Edward Moore Kennedy, your candidacy would be a joke."
That may have been true, but the voters smiled indulgently. Although he had achieved the constitutional age requirement of 30 just months before, Ted easily won nomination and election to Brother John's old seat. His credentials were a football build (6 ft. 2 in., 200 lbs.), the handsomest face in the family, his father's money and his brother's name. Only later would he come into his own.
It soon became clear that he had another important asset: a dearth of enemies. The fourth Kennedy brother and the youngest of the nine-member brood reared by Joe and Rose, Teddy, as he was universally called then, lacked the sophistication and intellectual edge of John. He did not show Robert's intense, grating drive and zeal. "He has," said his father, "the affability of an Irish cop." More perceptively, Rose Kennedy observed: "He's very ambitious, and naturally he wants to do what the other boys did."
There was plenty of ambition and nerve, seemingly no sharp edges or animosities. For the kid brother of the President and the Attorney General, the boy Senator and occasional target of derision, these qualities were valuable. Soon after taking office, Ted Kennedy said, with self-deprecating humor that only the really assured can command: "I was down at the White House this afternoon with some suggestions for the State of the Union address. But all I got from him was, 'Are you still using that greasy kid stuff?' "
Diffident Freshman