Kennedy Clan Passes Its Mantle to Obama

WASHINGTON — The patriarch of the Kennedy clan passed a political torch to Barack Obama on Monday in a tumultuous college rally that glanced backward before reaching for the future.

"I know what America can achieve. I've seen it. I've lived it," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. "And with Barack Obama, we can do it again."

Accompanied by his niece, Caroline Kennedy, daughter of slain President John F. Kennedy, and his son, Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., the white-haired senator gave a thunderous endorsement to the Illinois senator in a packed sports arena at American University.

"It is time again for a new generation of leadership," shouted Kennedy, who turns 76 next month and has served in the Senate since Obama was 1 year old.

As a weeklong push began toward the 24 state primaries and caucuses on Feb. 5, the senator promised to lend "my voice, my energy and my commitment" to Obama's campaign.

Kennedy compared the spirit inspired by Obama's campaigns to the idealism ignited by his brothers in the 1960s.

"I sense the same kind of yearning today, the same kind of hunger to move on and move America forward," Kennedy said. "In Barack Obama, I see not just the audacity but the possibility of hope for the America that is yet to be."

"Ted-dee!" "Ted-dee!" "Ted-dee," the students chanted, before switching to "Oh-bam-ah!" "Oh-bam-ah!" "Oh-bam-ah!"

The candidate said he accepted the endorsement with humility.

"I know the cherished place the Kennedy family holds in the hearts of the American people," he told the students.

"I was too young to remember John Kennedy, and I was a child when Robert Kennedy ran for president," Obama said. "But in the stories that I heard growing up, I saw how my grandmother and mother spoke about them, and about that period in our nation's life as a time of great hope and achievement."

The Kennedy endorsement was a blow to Obama's rivals for the Democratic nomination — Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards. The Kennedy name is revered among many of the party's liberal constituencies, including labor unions, African Americans, Latinos, abortion rights advocates, and gay and lesbian activists.

Although Kennedy said both Clinton and Edwards "are my friends," he made several pointed references to the campaign tactics of both Hillary Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton.

"With Barack Obama, we will turn the page on the old politics of misrepresentation and distortion," Kennedy said. And apparently referring to Bill Clinton calling Obama's campaign assertions on Iraq "a fairy tale," Kennedy said, "from the beginning, he opposed the war in Iraq. And let no one deny that truth."

Asked by reporters about the Kennedy endorsement, Hillary Clinton said, "We're all proud of the people we have endorsing us."

Disputing charges that she or her husband had practiced distortion or racial politics, she told Arizona reporters in a conference call, "There's been no two people who have stood against that more than we have over many years."

The symbolism of the rally with Obama and the Kennedys was the story of the day in the Democratic campaign, however.

With the arena's scoreboard reading "Barack" on one side and "Obama" on the other and the clock stuck at 20:08, the students chanted, "Yes We Can" as the Kennedys praised the inheritor of their family's political legacy.

"Over the years, I've been deeply moved by the people who've told me they wish they could feel inspired and hopeful about America the way people did when my father was president," said Caroline Kennedy.

"This longing is even more profound today. Fortunately there is one candidate who offers the same sense of hope and inspiration," she declared. "Barack Obama is the president we need."

"Your mother and father would be so proud today," Sen. Kennedy told his niece.