Who Will Be The Next Ted Kennedy?
Last night, the Lion of the Senate Ted Kennedy died. This was all over the news and he was in poor health for the last few months. Ted was the last of the 3 great Kennedy brothers. Being in the Senate for over 40 years, Kennedy had a hand in many of the great progressive advances this Nation has made. He was instrumental in the passage of the Civil Rights Act, The Voting Rights Act, Americans with Disabilities Act, The Family and Medical Leave Act, and Title IX of the Education Amendments… among many others.
Ted Kennedy was a progressive titan and his absence in the Senate will be missed especially in our current political atmosphere. While I am glad that Obama is our President, I noted long ago that he was not the progressive that many Democrats thought he was. Despite what Fox News kept repeating, Barack Obama has always been a moderate. He has always been more concerned with bringing people together than with doing what was right. People like Ted Kennedy are needed to push this President in a more progressive direction and to balance out the voices of the religious Republicans.
Ted Kennedy is gone now. Who will be that progressive voice? Who will rise up to be the next Lion of the Senate and to hold Obama accountable for the change that he promised?
The healthcare fight is going on right now and people like Ted Kennedy are needed to help fight for Medicare for All. The healthcare compromise of the “public option” is not in dangerous of being compromised out of existence and into more money for the healthcare industry at the expense of people’s lives. Had Ted Kennedy not being fighting off brain cancer, he would have surely been a strong voice for a Medicare for All type of plan.
Who in the Senate will rise up to take the mantel that Kennedy has left behind? I am not talking about some other progressive like Berne Sanders taking that spot, because that would leave us without a Berne Sanders. I am asking the cowardly Democratic Senators, which one of you will step up and become a Ted Kennedy?
Filed under: Current Events, death, Politics