Kennedy made mark on Valley

By Rick Rouan

The senator’s message of hope resonated with Mahoning Valley residents.

Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy’s devotion to social service, including work on health- care reform, minimum-wage increases and labor legislation, gave the Democrat broad appeal to the Mahoning Valley, area political figures said.

“He had the undying passion for social improvement, for working for the public, for working for the poor,” said Harry Meshel, former president of the Ohio Senate.

Kennedy, the last of the four Kennedy brothers, died in his Cape Cod home Tuesday after a yearlong battle with brain cancer. He was 77.

The senator spent nearly 50 years in Congress as a stalwart advocate of social reform, including health care and labor legislation. At the Democratic National Convention last year, he proclaimed the importance of health care in the U.S.

Kennedy was no stranger to the Valley. During his tenure as a senator, Kennedy visited Youngstown and Western Pennsylvania at least a half-dozen times, wowing thousands with stirring political speeches.

“Ted Kennedy was always an exhilarating and exciting individual who could raise hopes and spirits of the people to whom he spoke,” Meshel said.

In 1980, Kennedy at the Mahoning Country Club publicly endorsed Meshel for the 19th District Congressional seat. That was the same year the senator campaigned against incumbent President Jimmy Carter in the Democratic primary.

The senator drew a crowd of 2,500 to the Memorial High School gymnasium in Campbell in 1978 and at least 3,000 to the Idora Park ballroom for a 1980 speech, where then-Mahoning County Prosecutor Vincent E. Gilmartin welcomed him to “Kennedyland.”

The Vindicator headline — “Kennedy’s Message of Hope Is Cheered by 3,000 at Idora” — was a precursor to the campaign of President Barack Obama, who Kennedy at Youngstown State University endorsed for president last year.

“He recognized that politics is to be used as a force for good and an opportunity to level the playing field for those who were hurt by our economic system,” said U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Niles, D-17th.

Kennedy lost his 1980 presidential bid but carried Mahoning County with 55 percent of the vote, according to the county board of elections.

“People really related to him. I think the fact that he was a Kennedy, and you have a very strong ethnic backdrop in the Valley still, and he came from a very ethnic family,” said Dave Betras, Mahoning County Democratic Party chairman. “They all looked at him with iconic status.”

The senator’s appeal to the Valley came from his devotion to progressivism, said state Rep. Bob Hagan of Youngstown, D-60th.

“We identified with the Kennedy politics and the liberalism and fighting for health-care reform and fighting for our union brothers and sisters, making sure seniors had expanded health care,” Hagan said.

The Hagan and Kennedy families had both political and personal connections. Hagan said he can remember distributing literature about John F. Kennedy when he was 10 years old.

His father was the master of ceremonies when John F. Kennedy was in Youngstown for the 1960 presidential campaign. Hagan said his brother, Tim, a Cuyahoga County commissioner, was at Kennedy’s bedside just three weeks ago.

When Bob Hagan campaigned for state representative for the first time in 1986, Kennedy came to town to endorse him.

“His words were ‘Bob Hagan. He’s young, he’s tough, and he’ll fight for the Valley.’ I used that on all my literature,” he said.

Meshel said that Kennedy, despite his wealth, was easy to relate to because of both the issues he supported and the courtesies he extended people with whom he came into contact.

“We’ve got a lot of people who have forgotten who put them there. Some of them are working too hard on politics rather than progress for the nation,” said Meshel, who recalled several personal thank-you letters from Kennedy.

When Kennedy was in Youngstown last year stumping for Obama, Meshel said “he was loose, he was having a good time, as if he was campaigning for precinct committeeman,” despite his publicly known battle with brain cancer.

Ted Kennedy was the only Kennedy son to die of natural causes.

The family, one of the nation’s most celebrated political dynasties, has been marred with tragedy. Two of his brothers, John and Robert, were assassinated and his oldest brother, Joe, died in a plane crash in World War II. In 1969, Ted Kennedy drove his car off a bridge on Martha’s Vineyard, killing a woman.

But, ultimately, Kennedy leaves a political legacy of social reform.

“Here’s a guy who was a multimillionaire and he committed and devoted his life to public service,” Hagan said. “That’s the kind of politics we believed in.”

rrouan@vindy.com

The Associated Press contributed to this report.