Kennedy's death is the latest in a series of events that have dealt setbacks to Obama's standing and his health care initiative. Lawmakers summer's town meetings have been disrupted by widely publicized protests of his health care agenda and other expansions of government power. Recent polls show a drop in Obama's public support. He has angered liberals by signaling a willingness to drop a pillar of liberal orthodoxy - providing a government-run health insurance option. Partisan opposition to health care reform in the Senate has hardened as the handful of Republicans who had joined in seeking compromise are now equivocating in the face of hostile constituents.
Against that backdrop, it is not clear that even Kennedy in his prime could have transformed the polarized environment that has dampened if not dashed Obama's hope for a comprehensive health care overhaul.
However, because Kennedy has been legislating for so many years - over an array of issues far broader than most contemporary senators - he had developed an eye for the unlikely compromise. And he was schooled by his family tradition and by the ethos of the less-partisan Senate of yore in the art of establishing ties with Republicans.
"He had an amazing ability to find the glimmer of common ground that might be elusive to a lot of us because we don't have the deep relationships with people on the other side, or we don't know everything that makes them tick," said California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer.
Kennedy also had the good political fortune to have a loyal and forgiving constituency in Massachusetts, which has re-elected him by wide margins - even after the 1969 Chappaquiddick car accident that left a young woman dead and raised questions about Kennedy's judgment that would have ended another senator's career. And as an icon of the Democratic left, Kennedy would have been better positioned than others to persuade liberals to accept half a loaf - such as a bill without a government-run health insurance option - if that was all that could be achieved.
"I don't think Kennedy could have brought the package home as currently constructed," said John Feehery, former senior aide to the House Republican leadership. " I am also not sure if he would have not over-reached as badly as Congressional Democrats have done to get to the hopeless situation they are now in. However, only Kennedy would have been able to pick up the pieces after this thing utterly collapses and salvage the things that everybody agrees with."
Kennedy's death also underscores a cold reality about the limits of Democratic power in the Senate. On paper, Democrats have been sitting atop a commanding majority of 60 votes - the magic number needed to break a filibuster and control the balky institution. Now they have only 59, at least until Kennedy's successor is chosen.
And as a practical matter, Democrats majority has been even narrower for months. West Virginia Democratic Sen. Robert C. Byrd, 91, has also been ill and absent from the Senate.
Maryland officials recall Senator Kennedy as a friend and an inspiration. PG 8
