January 8 - 15, 1998
![[Michael Kennedy]](/archive/features/98/01/08/image/Kennedy_468x80.gif)
The rhetorical force of Joe Kennedy's eulogy at his brother's funeral on Saturday confirms the love he always professed for Michael. Will Joe run?
A brother's death ignites talk of Joe Kennedy's return to the governor's race
Talking Politics by Michael Crowley
But it's also true that in life, Michael may have cost Joe his excellent chance at becoming Massachusetts's next governor.
It is another truth -- not easy to discuss, but impossible to overlook -- that in death Michael may have returned that chance to his brother.
Michael Kennedy's death almost surely won't result in Joe Kennedy's rejoining this year's governor's race. But among Kennedy's fellow Democrats, it has already intensified pleas that he do so. Those supporters accurately see Joe bathed in a newly sympathetic light. They see him insulated once and for all from questions about Michael's scandalous affair with a teenage baby sitter. And they see what may be their faltering party's best chance to win back the governorship.
Read Dan Kennedy on the Globe's coverage
of Michael Kennedy's death
Kennedy's advisers have given no signs that it will happen. Most political pros say he'd burn up on reentry. But in a slightly fairer, slightly saner world, Kennedy could and would reenter the race. For it was a shame that the sordid sideshow of his brother's affair forced him out of the campaign in the first place. And it was a blow to the quality of the field and the depth of debate in this year's governor's race.
Michael's death closes the door on the baby-sitter scandal. No longer will Joe have to contend with media reports about the "Alicia Silverstone look-alike," "sex addiction," and lie detector tests. This wasn't the only issue dogging Joe, but it was by far the worst. And it amplified a thousandfold every other piece of unflattering news -- from an angry book by his ex-wife, about the contentious annulment of their marriage, to his son's July fireworks injury.
Joe can now put the story behind him in a way that wasn't possible before. True, he never fully disclosed what he knew of the affair, or when he knew it; but then nobody expected him to help send his brother to jail. In any case, there is no longer any point in pummeling Joe with such questions, or goading him into controversial statements about his brother. (He even delivered a stern verdict on Michael's behavior, calling it "horrific" in an October 60 Minutes interview.) To those reporters brave enough to bring up the dead man's disgrace, Kennedy can respond simply: "I loved my brother. He's gone now, and I have nothing else to say."
Joe Kennedy can't ever expect an end to the public hunger for personal details about his family. But he might now expect to spend far less time talking about Michael's sex life, and far more on questions such as health care, job training, and economic justice.
He can also expect a new relationship with the Massachusetts public. As the most visible figure in Michael's funeral, Joe has been the focal point for a pity he has not seen since he endured, with famous stoicism, the 1968 slaying of his father, Bobby Kennedy.
It was Joe who delivered the moving eulogy over Michael's casket. It was a somber Joe we saw, again and again, on television and on the front pages of the Herald and the Globe: carrying the body from the airplane; carrying the casket; embracing family members; even, in Sunday's Globe, leaning over to kiss his embittered ex-wife, Sheila.
WBUR talk show host Christopher Lydon -- who told the New York Times that "the public grief for Michael Kennedy sounds to me like a cue for Joe Kennedy to reenter the governor's race" -- says Michael's death might mark a turning point.
"My strongest sense of the funeral was a feeling among that generation of Kennedys that `We're back. We've seen the bottom and the ultimate loss in Michael's death, and we're still here, we're still talented, we're still hungry,' " says Lydon, who sang in a choir at the service. "My own guess is that [Joe] would find his way back in very comfortably."
As they put Michael to rest, might the family have had Joe's future at least somewhat in mind? It is hardly implausible that they would send public signals this way; Kennedy funeral choreography dates back to Jacqueline Kennedy's micromanagement of JFK's service for precise public effect. Nor does it seem likely that Kennedys ever truly stop thinking about politics. Says another observer of state politics: "The buzz at the funeral was that he's gonna run."
There have been no public polls -- yet. But surely the public feels a new degree of empathy for the Kennedy family -- and, by extension, for Joe. Consider the hand-crafted yellow poster taped last weekend to an I-93 highway sign outside Cohasset, Michael Kennedy's hometown: WE LOVE YOU KENNEDYS.
If, in the wake of Joe's exit from the race, another Democrat had emerged as a strong and inspiring candidate, this debate would never take place. But apart from all the questions of public sympathy and personal baggage, one thing is certain: there is ample room for Joe Kennedy in the governor's race. He is still loved by many Democrats. He might have a better chance than anyone else of winning back the governor's office from the Republicans. And he would energize an uninspired campaign in which the only real dialogue so far has been over who's got the biggest tax cut.
When Kennedy dropped out of the race, Attorney General Scott Harshbarger immediately succeeded him as the Democratic front-runner. But the party's activist base was so unsatisfied with Harshbarger that it immediately began a public search for new candidates to oppose him. Former state senator Patricia McGovern declared in September, and former Boston mayor Ray Flynn and former congressman Brian Donnelly may yet join in.
None of these current or possible candidates has generated enthusiasm among Democrats. Harshbarger has ignored his party's core to play the "outsider" wooing suburban independents. McGovern has had a miserable time raising money and building recognition. Neither seems to present a compelling alternative to the Republicans in the race, Acting Governor Paul Cellucci and state treasurer Joe Malone. Flynn is weighed down by ethical and personal questions, and Donnelly has an invisible profile; neither would stand a chance in the general election.
Nor does this field promise the vigorous political debate Massachusetts deserves in 1998. Having climbed out of a punishing recession, the state is cruising with a strong economy and surplus revenue. This is a moment for imaginative ideas. It's a time for a passionate leader who can recommit the Massachusetts electorate, still entranced by Bill Weld's laissez-faire fiscal conservatism, to vital progressive causes. Kennedy was ready to talk about such recently neglected topics as poverty, child hunger, health insurance, and worker training -- and he would surely have won converts.
Finally, none of these Democrats looks like a good bet to win back the governorship from the Republicans. A November Boston Globe poll found Cellucci whipping Harshbarger by 20 points, 51-31. (McGovern fared slightly better, trailing 45-33.) Kennedy may be the Democrats' best hope for regaining the corner office.
That same poll -- taken, mind you, long before the week of public mourning -- found that if Joe rejoined the race, he would find himself in a dead heat with Harshbarger for first place among the Democrats.
The bitter irony that if Joe had joined the race last year, he would find himself in a position of great strength. But if he does want to run now, it wouldn't be an easy return. Right away, Kennedy would have to address a difficult question: what has changed to make you reconsider? It would be honest, and moral, for Joe to answer that he believes he has a new opportunity to talk about issues instead of a scandalous sideshow.
Of course, Kennedy cannot say that. But he might argue that he couldn't stand by while the Republicans rolled over a weak Democratic field. He might say that he couldn't tolerate the narrowness of the debate the governor's race now seems likely to offer.
When Kennedy backed out last August, though, he pleaded that a campaign would put too much strain on his wife and children. Even if he rightly believes a campaign now would be easier for them to take, he'd have trouble finessing that one.
Nor will all be forgotten or forgiven. Kennedy's other troubles were blown far out of proportion by their conjunction with the Michael scandal -- none more so than his ex-wife Sheila's story of how he allegedly bullied her into an annulment, which will remain fair game for pointed commentary.
A nonissue like the fireworks accident will fade away. But others could return. In March, for instance, Kennedy admitted to a much closer relationship with John Huang (of Clinton campaign-finance scandal fame) than he'd previously acknowledged. And there were always the dark rumors of some unspecified bombshell to come.
Finally, as a candidate, Kennedy would face serious organizational and fundraising problems. Many donors, for instance, have already committed themselves to other candidates, although Kennedy does have some $2 million in his federal campaign fund -- most of which would be available for a statewide race. And the Democratic caucuses, in which delegates to the state party's convention are elected, are just a month away. But it's possible to skip the caucuses and still make it onto the primary ballot -- that might even make for a more dramatic comeback.
Above all, though, Joe would have to contend with the notion that he was somehow exploiting Michael's death. The questions about the baby sitter might be silenced, but new suspicions about Joe's motives would flourish.
If Joe were to return, "his decision-making would be bracketed by his brother's troubles," says Lou DiNatale, a senior fellow at UMass Boston's McCormack Institute for Public Affairs. "His brother would continue to be a reference point." (One politico even noted ruefully that Kennedy-haters and conspiracy nuts would float the idea that Michael had been "bumped off" to clear the way for Joe.)
Charges of cynical exploitation would probably succeed -- but they would be unfair. If Joe Kennedy were truly acting out of higher principles and passions, it would not be shameful for him to rejoin the race. If the tragic fact of Michael's death made it easier for Joe to advance a public mission dear to him and his family, it would not be exploitive of him to do so.
But it wouldn't be an easy road. And perhaps one of the enduring lessons of Kennedy's initial exit from the race last August is that he simply doesn't have the stomach to sail through the public thunderstorms a Kennedy in politics must endure. It can be done. After all, his uncle Ted overcame suspicions that he was responsible for a woman's death at Chappaquiddick to become an American icon. After Eugene McCarthy's strong showing in the 1968 New Hampshire presidential primary exposed the vulnerability of President Lyndon Johnson, Joe's father Bobby joined the 1968 race to scornful criticism that he was an opportunist. He emerged as a hero. But perhaps Joe is not made for such trials.
And yet, one returns to his words, spoken in the eulogy over Michael's casket in a Centerville church on Saturday: "[Michael] turned to the task our father set, which has inspired each of us -- and people everywhere -- to make more gentle the life of the world."
Through this tragedy, the unfathomable designs of fate may have given Joe another chance to pursue his father's task. Even if Joe didn't handle Michael's scandal ideally, the prurient, ratings-and-readership-driven frenzy over his brother should never have obscured the real issues of government and politics at stake. In a fairer world, perhaps, Kennedy could stand before Massachusetts voters in an honest effort to convince them he has the best ideas for Massachusetts's future. It won't happen. But it should.
Michael Crowley can be reached at mcrowley[a]phx.com.
