Ted Kennedy
The Longest Serving Hier to Honey Fitz

"I'll whip his [heinie]."
     - James Earl Carter

When Jimmy gave his famous quote about the challenge of Senator Edward M. Kennedy to Jimmy's renomination as President was a time when public language was far more genteel. But the reporters dutifully reported the unexpurgated quote.

According to one story, Teddy responded, "I knew the President was behind me, but I didn't know he was that close."

Edward Morris Kennedy was the ninth of nine kids born to Joseph Patrick and Rose Elizabeth Kennedy. Big Joe, as we can call him, was the son of John Francis Kennedy - a quite long lived Boston politician. "Honey Fitz" was popular with the voters and after serving as mayor of Boston had a remarkably short lived stint as a congressman.

One thing that was strange about the Kennedy siblings is that their Bostonian accents got more pronounced with their birth dates. If we go by surviving voice recordings, Joe Kennedy, Jr - the oldest brother and who was killed during World War II - had no particular accent.

But the three youngest boys certainly spouted the patented Kennedy New England twang. A recording of a 20 year old John (recently released by Harvard) is pretty much the JFK we know.

The Kennedy Voice was so distinctive that it caused problems for actors well into the 1970's. In The Missiles of October, a made-for-television movie from 1974, both William Devane (John) and a young Martin Sheen (Bobby) also put on their best Boston-Brahmin cosmopolitan accents and upped their pitch accordingly. If not perfect, at least they did give it the old Kennedy try.

Today, though, films of Jack or Bobby are less common. The most recent wide screen depiction of the Brothers Kennedy - a movie whose title we will not name - "Jack" spoke with a baritone robustness and more than a tang of the Midwest.

Bobby's voice was similar to Jack's but a bit higher in timbre. After November 22, 1963, satire of JFK was more or less off-limits. Copies of the best-selling First Family Album (where Vaughn Meader played Jack) were yanked from the shelves, and the cover of MAD Frontier was redrawn to remove the connection to JFK.

But when Robert was elected senator from New York in 1964, he was fair game. One of the popular novelty records of 1967 was "Wild Thing" recorded by "Senator Bobby" voiced by comedian William Minkin. It ended up at #20 on the charts.

But it was Ted who kept the Kennedy accent alive well past the Millennium. He seems to have lengthened his "a's" even beyond the call of duty, and a word like "half" was markedly spoken as "haaawwhhf".

Ted, though, was rarely a subject of impressionists. Obviously the third time was not the charm, likely because by that time there was a much better target for comedians in Richard M. Nixon.

It was almost a given that Ted would be the third Kennedy to run for president. But then in 1969 came the accident on Chappaquiddick Island (actually part of Martha's Vineyard) which pretty much ended Ted's aspirations for 1972. And some thought forever.

However, by 1976 talk had started to surface that Ted should run. But for whatever reason he didn't. Then in 1980 he decided to contest the nomination of Jimmy Carter. For a while some thought that Ted might actually pull it off. But in the end Jimmy did whip Ted's .... well, let's say Jimmy secured the nomination.

After all that hassle Ted pretty much took himself out of the running. When asked if he'd run in 1984 or if he would accept the nomination if the Democrats could not find a suitable candidate, Ted said no to both questions. But he added he didn't think the latter situation would arise. There was, of course, a nominee that year, but whether he was suitable is a matter of opinion since he lost. Anyway, Ted remained in the Senate until he died in 2009, serving longer than all but three other senators.

References

"Holding A Grudge For 30 Years: Jimmy Carter Against Ted Kennedy", Ken Rudin, National Public Radio, September 21, 2010.

"The Hot 100", Billboard, February 4, 1967.

Official CooperToons Unwritten References. Some of the references used for this story were read and noted, but alas, at the time were not written down. For those who think such an approach may be a little cavalier for a website devoted to eradicating ignorance and superstition, as an American President once said, "Trust me".