Remembering Teddy.

Ted Kennedy was a great liberal and a phenomenally effective leader above all because of his personal generosity. There was a seamless connection between his concern for humanity in general and his joy in engaging with people one at a time.

There is the sort of politician who does favors in the spirit of the Sicilian proverb – I don’t do favors; I incur debts – and then there was Teddy Kennedy, who cast his bread upon the waters. Long before practicing random acts of kindness became a bumper sticker, Ted Kennedy was the apotheosis of kindness. It was the genuineness of his love of people that allowed him to befriend Republican conservatives, often finding common ground. What made this improbable strategy work so superbly as politics was not his guile, but his guilelessness.

His capacity to connect on a personal level with so many different kinds of people was utterly real. The loyalty of his staff was legendary, not because of the thrill of working for a celebrity or a powerhouse but because his kindness extended to everyone.

At one of his many 75th birthday parties at his Washington home, I was startled to run into several right-wing princes of darkness, who were there because the recognized Kennedy’s greatness and because they genuinely liked the man. He was a master at winning over even those who wanted to hate him.

Ted Kennedy was also a great friend of The American Prospect. When we moved the magazine from Boston to Washington in 2001, I called Sen. Kennedy’s office and asked if he would be willing to do an event for us. He not only agreed, but he encouraged us to invite a group of 200 intimate friends to his Washington home, where he was the most gracious of hosts. Arriving early, I encountered the senator alone, and he took me around the house showing mementos of one of America’s great political families, with wit and warmth, as if he had not done the small tour thousands of times before. And when the magazine held a 15th birthday celebration in 2006, honoring Boston’s progressive leaders including his wife Vicky, the senator spent a long evening in good humor vouching for the importance of the Prospect’s work.

For one so prominent, he was remarkably unpretentious. In a profession where extreme narcissism is an occupational hazard, he did not have an outsized ego.

And in recognizing politics as the art of the possible, Kennedy never sought the safe center. He was always pushing the boundaries in a more progressive direction. It is a mark of both his high principle and his tactical genius that the Senate’s most effective legislative leader was also one of its most progressive members -- not an easy feat.

If President Obama wishes to honor Ted Kennedy’s memory, he should do more than pass universal health reform. He should remember that great progressive leaders do not seek the center; they define a new center.

--Robert Kuttner