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Susan Estrich
The Kennedy Family
Susan Estrich 5/21/2008
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That's what we are. I don't just mean the real Kennedys, the people who are related to what will always be, for my generation, the closest thing America has to royalty. I mean those of us who worked for him and with him at any point in those 45 years. You join a family, and you never leave.

So it was that on Saturday, when the phone rang and I learned that "the Senator," as we always call him, had had a seizure, and today, when "glioma" shattered my computer screen, I picked up the phone to call. That's what we do. Phone lines burning. Everyone calls everyone. Hold on, is the official unofficial word. Everybody knows glioma is bad. But we don't know anything about size yet. Size matters. Hard to laugh. The location is "good," as these things go. No one is giving up yet. Of course not. That's not the way we do things in this family.

I've worked for lots of politicians in my time and remain very fond of all of them. But there is nothing quite like the Kennedy family. What explains it has a great deal to do with the man and the mission.

I worked for Ted Kennedy when he was chair of the Judiciary Committee, when he ran for president and then on his Senate staff. They were turbulent times, people getting hired and fired, a huge presidential
campaign-sized staff shrinking to a post-Reagan, Republican Senate-sized one. Smart, intensely competitive people jockeying for position. Everyone competing for the Senator's time, attention, ear. It was not an easy place to work. The loyalty of the Kennedy family is not based on the job being easy or pleasant.

It's about something else. The integrity of the fight. The commitment to principles first. The fact that you are joined in a fight that is as big as the first family in American politics and as small as that one person who needs help, and that both count.

In May 1980, I was standing toward the back in a Temple in Livingston, N.J., where the Senator was speaking to a crowded room.

A woman in the back waved her arm, and he called on her. She asked him what his position was on helping Iranian Jews stranded under the new regime, unable to leave the country to join family in America. I had done the briefing book for the event, and I knew there was nothing there on Iranian Jews. The Senator caught my eye, and I was sure he hadn't anticipated the question any more than I had. "I'm not sure what we can do to help," he said. "But I want you to talk to my staff member at the back of the room, Susan Estrich, and we'll help you."

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Enjoy the view
By Olle Johansson - Sweden * Posted 1/30/2008 12:00:00 AM
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© Copyright 2008  Olle Johansson - All Rights Reserved.

Posted By: Chris Miilu  on Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Thank you for your comments.  When I worked in D.C. for a law firm, formerly democratic staffers from the hill, Senator Kennedy's office was considered to be the cream of the crop, best of the best.  Assume that would include you and all others who worked there.  Senator Kennedy has held the name high for decades, and we are all proud of him.  Perhaps Bobby Kennedy can go back to Massachusetts and establish a residency.  He, too, would be a great senator should the need arise.

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