BOSTON — When Barack Obama’s presidential prospects sagged, Sen. Edward Kennedy lifted the candidate with a coveted endorsement.
When brain cancer kept the Massachusetts Democrat from delivering his stepdaughter’s college commencement address, Obama left the campaign trail and stood in for his then-Senate colleague.
And when Obama made one of the most closely watched decisions of his young presidency — the type of puppy his daughters would get — it was Kennedy who gave him “Bo,” a Portuguese water dog like the pair that have been a fixture in Kennedy’s Capitol Hill offices.
With Kennedy now at his vacation home in Hyannis Port on Cape Cod and Obama setting off on his week-long stay on nearby Martha’s Vineyard, there’s speculation the president might visit the ailing senator.
A visit could provide a rallying point for Democrats as Obama seeks to achieve one of Kennedy’s career goals: overhauling the nation’s health-insurance system to provide near-universal coverage. It also would show anew the relationship between the first African-American president and the last vestige of the Camelot era.
Despite a gulf in age, race and life experience, the 48-year-old Obama and the 77-year-old Kennedy have forged a personal bond.
“He is the kind of president that Kennedy can relate to,” said Robert Shrum, who helped draft the senator’s famous 1980 Democratic National Convention concession speech and remains a close personal friend.
“He’s appealed to people’s idealism. He’s appealed to their notion of service, things that have been touchstones of Kennedy’s life,” Shrum said of Obama.
