It is smoky and sweltering in the high-ceilinged Pennsylvania Room at the Sheraton Hotel on John F. Kennedy Boulevard in Philadelphia. Some 300 Democrats have paid $250 each to attend a fund-raising reception, but instead of bunching around the bar and the hors d'oeuvres table, they are jostling for position at the door, waiting for the main attraction. "I do hope I can just see him," an elderly woman gushes.
Suddenly, Ted Kennedy strides into the room, his flushed face beaming and his right hand reaching out. "Ooh," squeals an elegantly coiffed woman. "He shook my hand. Did you see that? This hand right here." Kennedy sweeps through the room, bellowing in his Boston accent, "Hi, how are you, good to see you." "Go, Teddy!" someone yells. Kennedy gives a short pep talk for the object of the reception, former Congressman William Green. "I want to introduce the man who will be the next mayor of Philadelphia," Kennedy says. Green takes the microphone and shouts: "I want to thank the man who will be the next. . ." He is drowned out by laughter and applause.
An hour later, showered and changed into a fresh dark-blue suit and white shirt, Kennedy is on the podium in the Sheraton's grand ballroom. He has been working on his address until the last moment, and sometimes he stumbles over the notes in the margins, but he is one of the most effective stump speakers in the country, and his vigorous attack on Jimmy Carter comes through loud and clear. Though he does not mention the President by name, the words leader and leadership keep recurring, 17 times in all. This is Ted Kennedy's main theme, tonight and in the long months ahead. Scoffing at Carter's suggestion that the Government's powers to solve problems are limited, Kennedy sounds a more ebullient tone: "I reject those views completely. They are counsels of defeat and despair, excuses for leadership that has failed to do its job." He echoes, deliberately and inevitably, the older brothers who were assassinated. "We can light those beacon fires again," he promises. "From the hilltops of America, we can send another call to arms, a call for more effective action on all the challenges we face." The crowd of 600 partisan Democrats roars in approval, and when Kennedy strides off the stage, the six-piece band in the balcony plays music from Camelot.
Twenty minutes after that, at a rally of 3,000 working-class Democrats in South Philadelphia, Kennedy clambers onto a table. He has no text. His sentences are simpler. His speech strikes a booming rhythm, and the crowd chants in response to him. "At other times in our history when we were facing problems, we didn't throw up our hands in despair." "No!" shouts the crowd. "We didn't talk about malaise in the American spirit." "No!" comes the reply. "We rolled up our sleeves." "Yes!" the people shout. "And set out on the job to be done."
"Yes!" "And we can do it again." The crowd begins to chant: "We want Teddy! Teddy! Teddy!"*
The last of the Kennedy brothers, the youngest, the most vulnerable, the most thoroughly political, is finally running for President. For more than a decade, he has distorted American presidential politics, three times a possible candidate and three times pulling back. "I would like to be President," he said at one point, "but not at this time." Now, disdainful of Carter's leadership, he has decided that the time is right. After a considerable amount of coy public indecision, he is expected to announce this week that he has formed a campaign committee, headed by Brother-in-Law Stephen Smith, 52, who helped run John Kennedy's presidential campaign in 1960. Then, barring some highly unlikely event, Edward Moore Kennedy, 47, will formally declare before Thanksgiving that he is a candidate for President of the U.S.