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Even the most astute tourists, however, may not realize the extent to which the Massachusetts Democrat long ago passed up the chance to coast along as a celebrity. When the cameras were elsewhere, he bore into the details and drudgery of legislating, leaving his imprint on hundreds of laws dealing with health care, civil rights, welfare, housing, education, foreign affairs and other issues.
Saturday's news that Kennedy was hospitalized after an apparent seizure served as a sharp reminder that he is 76 and has been in the Senate 45 years
-- longer than most Americans have been alive.
Celebrity magazines hail him as the last son from a glamorous but sorrow-tinged political family. Congressional insiders know that he also embraces his job wholeheartedly, working harder and longer hours than some younger colleagues, and hiring bright aides who often stay for years and are seen as role models by others.
Perhaps because it was impossible, Kennedy never tried to shake his image as a liberal titan to admirers and a left-wing caricature to detractors. But the supposed idealist became a pragmatic dealmaker, sometimes angering liberals by his willingness to bargain with Republicans to enact legislation he saw as less than perfect but attainable.
"I think that in his heart, he's where I'm at, but he wants to see a deal move forward and he's willing to take certain steps that I might not be willing to take," Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., told The Associated Press last year after abandoning a major immigration bill that he felt was too harsh on illegal immigrants seeking legal status.
The bill eventually collapsed. But Kennedy has cajoled and prodded and pestered his way to other compromises that succeeded on a range of topics that few lawmakers in history can match.
Arizona Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, said Saturday that Kennedy's role in the Senate "cannot be overstated. He is a legendary lawmaker, and I have the highest respect for him. When we have worked together, he has been a skillful, fair and generous partner. I consider it a great privilege to call him my friend."
Jim Manley, a former Kennedy aide, said that "despite coming from a family of great wealth and privilege, no one has been a more effective advocate for the poor and the middle class." Manley said his former boss "has never been afraid to compromise in order to get things done."
The list is long. In 1973, after the Watergate scandal, Kennedy co-sponsored the first bipartisan campaign finance bill. It established new contribution limits and a public financing provision for presidential elections.
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 Kennedy was instrumental in enacting the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, the State Children's Health Insurance Program, and many other health care initiatives.
To be sure, there were disappointments along the way. Although Kennedy has sharply criticized President Bush on Iraq and other issues, he worked with the administration to enact the No Child Left Behind education bill. Many leading Democrats, including Obama, now deride the bill as a test-obsessed hindrance to local decisions about teaching.
If Kennedy's penchant for compromise bewilders some liberals who see him as a stereotype, his biographers will have to sort through a larger mass of contradictions.
Fans see him as a wise and caring man, intent on helping the less fortunate. But he shocked the nation in 1969 when he drove his car off a bridge to Massachusetts' Chappaquiddick Island and a young female campaign worker drowned. Kennedy, who did not call authorities until the next day, pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and received a suspended two-month jail sentence.
His brothers were legendary politicians, but Kennedy can be surprisingly inarticulate at times. Many felt he doomed his 1980 bid to wrest the Democratic presidential nomination from President Carter when reporter Roger Mudd simply asked, "Why do you want to be president?" The senator stumbled and rambled as though he had barely considered the idea.
[Associated
Press; By CHARLES BABINGTON]
Copyright 2008 The Associated
Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
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