WASHINGTON — Nearly a year after Sen. Edward Kennedy’s death, prominent Democrats in Washington and Massachusetts are promoting his widow as the party’s best shot at winning back the Senate seat he held for nearly five decades.
Victoria Reggie Kennedy has announced no plans to run, but the mere prospect of a candidacy has become a source of tension in the family, according to those close to the Kennedys. Some relatives fear that a 2012 campaign against Republican Sen. Scott Brown — a popular figure even in liberal Massachusetts — would distract Kennedy from promoting her late husband’s legacy, they said.
Vicki Kennedy, a lawyer who married into the Kennedy dynasty in 1992, passed up the chance to run for the seat last year, and some confidants said she has told them she has no plans to run this time.
Still, some party leaders have been quietly promoting her as their preferred candidate.
“She’d be a superb candidate, no question,” said Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., a friend. “Does she have it? Yeah, she’s got it in spades.”
