WASHINGTON — It was never a perfect fit — politics and Patrick Kennedy, the latest and perhaps the last in the long line of Kennedys at the heart of American political life.
The sometimes fragile son of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy has spent all of his adult life in public office, but he has rarely seemed at ease in the spotlight.
On Friday, five months after his father’s death, he announced he will retire from Congress, expressing a sense of relief. It will be the first time in six decades that Washington will be without a Kennedy in office.
“It feels like a load off my shoulders,” said the Rhode Island Democrat, who started pursuing public office before he graduated from college.
“I’ll have a private life and a personal life that heretofore I really haven’t experienced,” he said in a telephone interview. “I am looking forward to it.”
Kennedy, 42, a nephew of President John F. Kennedy and of Attorney General and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, said he will serve out his eighth term but won’t seek a ninth this fall.
In his autobiography, Edward Kennedy wrote that his son had a shy nature but seemed to love campaigning.
Still, Patrick showed little zeal for political combat, finding his place instead as a passionate advocate for the mentally ill and speaking candidly about his own struggles with depression and substance abuse.
The younger Kennedy said his father’s death from brain cancer last summer helped lead him to pivot away from the life in government embraced by so many Kennedys before him.
He said his father agreed that you don’t have to hold public office to make a difference.
Yet for all the pressure and hassle of public life, Patrick Kennedy said Friday that he stayed on that path in part because it nourished his relationship with his father.
“It’s kind of paradoxical,” he said.
