Barack Kennedy?

This election cycle, many people seem to be obsessed with the notion of comparing Sen. Barack Obama to President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert Kennedy, including the Kennedys. While comparisons of the Democratic nominee and the late Kennedy brothers are nothing new, what is new is that they are being made by the Kennedy’s rather than the candidate’s top aides.

President Bill Clinton and his campaign communications team presented him as the natural heir to President Kennedy during both the 1992 and 1996 campaigns. It made since at the time as well; Clinton was youngest and arguably most charismatic nominee either party had seen since Kennedy. George Stephanopoulos made sure that there was no media outlet without a copy of the picture of a young Bill Clinton shaking the hand of then-President Kennedy. Clinton said often that Kennedy was his political hero as a young man. Once in office, Clinton prided himself on his work with Sen. Ted Kennedy, the late president’s youngest brother (former First Lady and Sen. Hillary Clinton did the same once she took office in the Senate).

While Al Gore never tried to position himself as a successor to Kennedy, he did cast himself as Clinton’s hand-picked successor. However, in many ways this worked to his advantage as many had already associated Clinton with Kennedy.

In 2004, John Kerry’s campaign began making Kennedy connections to their candidate as well. However, they focused on biographical connections rather than drawing connections between the two men’s age and perceived charisma. This was most likely because Kerry was not young at the time of his candidacy (and rumors of Botox injections also through out any hope of him being perceived as young) nor was he perceived as charismatic (he in fact was perceived by many as an Ivy League snob). The Kerry campaign aides had plenty to work with though. Both men were of Irish-Catholic descent with fathers who served in the diplomatic CORE. Both were graduated of Ivy League schools and had distinguished, wartime military records as naval officers. Finally, both men were senators from the state of Massachusetts (Kerry also serves as a senator with Ted Kennedy) and both men had the initials JFK.

Now again in 2008 parallels are being drawn between the Democratic nominee and the late President Kennedy. This time however, Obama’s campaign staff hardly has to lift a finger, the Kennedy family is doing most of the work. Ted Kennedy has served as the family patriarch since the assassination of his brother, Robert, in 1968 and Caroline Kennedy is the sole surviving child of John. So when the two of them took the stage with Rep. Patrick Kennedy (Ted’s son) back in January to endorse Obama, Obama’s top campaign aides had to be doing cartwheels.

A day before the endorsement event, Caroline Kennedy had written an op-ed for the New York Times titled “A President Like My Father” in which she stated that Obama was the only candidate since her father that she felt could inspire people the way her father did. What’s more is that she credited Obama with inspiring her children who in turn inspired her to be a part of Obama’s campaign.

At the endorsement event, the Kennedy’s constantly drew parallels between the late president and Obama. However one theme was constant throughout the entire event: that both President Kennedy and Sen. Obama have the capacity to inspire people of all ages. With two generations present on stage and numerous references to an inspired generation of “young people” the Kennedy’s made it clear that in their opinion Obama, like their father and brother, is a candidate for people of every age.

Not mentioned as much as the endorsements of Caroline, Patrick, and Ted are the endorsements of Robert Kennedy’s children and widow. Robert Kennedy Jr., Kerry Kennedy, and Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend all originally endorsed Hillary Clinton and were frequent guests on cable news shows in her defense. However both Max Kennedy and Rory Kennedy Bailey (also children of Robert) endorsed Barack Obama. Most significant, and perhaps the least covered, however is the early endorsement of Ethel Kennedy for Barack Obama who said in her Huffington Post endorsement, “Barack is so like Bobby…With courage, caring, and charisma, Senator Obama is leading us toward a kinder, gentler world.”

For forty years a generation of progressive baby-boomers has been waiting for a presidential candidate to pick up the torch of hope and inspiration they felt was lost with the assassinations of Kennedy brothers. Now the Kennedy family (or most of them at least) has said that Barack Obama is the person to pick up that torch—in fact they all said he already has.

So what does all this mean now that we are in the general election and past the primary? Mobilization. While few people would have been drawn from the undecided center by a simple press release endorsement by Ted Kennedy, the Kennedys endorsing Obama brilliantly used the political capital of their fallen patriarchs. Undecideds are not voters who are looking for a polarizing figure, they are looking for a figure that can unite the country—they want a “rally around the flag” president without the tragedy of a “rally around the flag” event. Both John and Robert Kennedy were those figures (or at least that is how their folklore is remembered today). Undecideds looking for unity and people who stopped voting because are disenchanted by the polarizing political process of today now have a candidate to rally around. Young people who couldn’t get excited about a candidate in the past now have people telling them that this man is not just the John Kennedy of their generation or the Robert Kennedy of their generation but both the John and Robert Kennedy of their generation and that may just be the thing to get the youth vote out of the cave.