Survivors record

If Edward Moore Kennedy was a man with a lifelong mission,he was equally a man with a lifelong burden of history,of family,of character. Born to Joseph P. Kennedy and Rose F. Kennedy,who practically trained their male children to be president,Edward,or Teddy,as fate cut short his elder brothers lives and careers,suddenly had the expectations of Americas most famous political dynasty thrust upon him after Robert F. Kennedys assassination in 1968. But character in the form of a reckless disposition interfered at Chappaquiddick in 1969,and ensured that the youngest of Joseph and Roses children would never attain the White House,something the family,next to the Massachusetts Senate seat he inherited from brother John F. in 1962 and held for four-plus decades,had come to regard as its natural right.

But the Chappaquiddick accident in which a young woman,a Robert Kennedy aide,died in Edwards car after it crashed and Edward fled the scene without reporting the incident would sink his bid for the Democratic nomination even in 1980. At his death on Tuesday at 77,Edward was the third-longest serving US senator,the Senates most famous Democrat,a patriarch of family,party and politics,with a formidable legislative achievement across healthcare,civil and voting rights,education and labour,affecting the lives of millions of Americans,often cutting across partisan lines as he collaborated in recent years with George W. Bush and John McCain over legislation. Even his request last week to the Massachusetts governor to change state law for a speedy succession to his imminently vacant seat to secure that one crucial Senate vote for President Obamas healthcare reforms marked his dedication to a lifetimes cause.

A liberal lion as Senate majority leader Harry Reid eulogised him,Edward Kennedy was also a legislative lion whose kind is vanishing from a politics thats shedding its cult of personality. As political scientist Norman Ornstein says,He was the survivor8230; He was not a shining star that burned brightly and faded away. He had a long steady glow. Whether he betrayed or redeemed the Kennedy dream,history will not call him a failure.