DENVER - The lights will dim inside the Pepsi Center tonight, a shock of silver hair will appear on giant monitors, and connections will be made once again between Camelot and the Obama nation.
A film tribute to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, a 46-year-veteran of the Senate diagnosed with a brain tumor this year, will dominate the opening hours of the Democratic National Convention. Watching from a prime seat will be Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Maryland's former lieutenant governor and Kennedy's niece, one of the state's 99 delegates here.
Townsend said in an interview with The Baltimore Sun that while the tribute is sure to be "moving and touching," a linkage between soon-to-be nominee Barack Obama and the Kennedy family legacy is not a main point.
"This is to Teddy, this is what he has accomplished," Townsend said. "He has done so much in his life, and overcome a great deal. He really is one of the best senators this country has ever had - the best."
Conventions are stage-crafted for maximum effect, however, and it will be no accident if viewers are left with the impression that Obama is heir to the spirit of perhaps the most potent name in Democratic politics.
"The tribute to Ted Kennedy is not only going to be emotional, but it is also going to be political in its motivations," said James W. Hilty, a Temple University historian who has written extensively on the Kennedys. "The idea is, of course, to stir memories of prior Democratic champions, and to link Obama with them."
Obama has already benefited from those connections. The campaign received "quite a kick," Hilty said, when Caroline Kennedy and Edward Kennedy endorsed Obama in January. For Caroline Kennedy, it was the first time she had publicly backed a candidate since her uncle's 1980 run.
The dividends had their limits. Obama did not carry Kennedy's home state of Massachusetts.
Not all Kennedy cousins backed the Illinois senator. Townsend was a Hillary Clinton supporter, as were her siblings, Robert Jr. and Kerry. She appeared on television frequently last spring as the Clinton campaign tried to counter-punch on the Kennedy connection.
Townsend now says she is enthusiastic about Obama. "I think Obama is an amazing candidate, and I think he will be an excellent president, and I am very excited about working with him, for him," she said.
Townsend and other Kennedy family members say they have not seen the eight-minute film, produced by documentary filmmakers Ken Burns and Mark Herzog.
