Joe Kennedy denies any angling for Ted Kennedy’s seat

Former Bay State congressman Joseph P.Kennedy II is dismissing as “gossip” claims in a new book that he and Edward M. Kennedy’s wife are battling behind the scenes to succeed the ailing senior senator.
“Whatever rumors and gossip may be out there, I can assure you that every member of the Kennedy family is pulling together behind our uncle, whom we all love dearly,” Kennedy said. “Even President Obama acknowledges that Sen. Kennedy continues to do outstanding work on national health insurance, national service, and a whole range of issues important to the American people.”
But author Edward Klein writes in his new book, “Ted Kennedy: The Dream That Never Died,” that Joe Kennedy views himself as the “heir apparent” to the Senate seat held by his uncle since 1962. The book also paints Kennedy’s wife, Victoria Kennedy, as “an interloper” who has her sights on the seat.
A source close to the storied clan also dismissed the report, saying, “Joe Kennedy doesn’t have any interest in coming back into politics at this point, despite people’s best efforts to pursuade him. I think he’s happy in his life. I don’t think there’s any issue between Vicki and Joe.”
The source also refuted reports of behind-the-scenes jockeying to succeed the senator, who has brain cancer.
“No one is talking about anything beyond the present situation,” said the source. “Anyone who is loyal to Sen. Kennedy is not discussing any eventuality. Whoever’s saying this stuff doesn’t have any real knowledge of what’s going on.”

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Clan bicker over Ted Kennedy’s Senate Seat

May 5, 2009

Ted Kennedy’s wife, Vicki, and his nephew, former congressman Joe Kennedy, are getting set for a bruising battle over who will succeed the ailing senator, according to a new book excerpted in the new issue of Vanity Fair magazine.
“Vicki is seen by all as an interloper and she is deeply resented by Ted’s children and many of the newphews,” Edward Klein writes in his new book, “Ted Kennedy: The Dream That Never Died,” due in stores next month.
“Joe, who sees himself as the only serious heir apparent, particularly loathes her control over his uncle and hence the family. Joe inherited his father’s ruthless gene. He is nothing if not aggressive. And anybody who tries to get between him and Ted’s Senate chair is in for a fight.”
The excerpt, which appears in the June issue of Vanity Fair, covers the 12 months since Kennedy, 77, was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor.
Klein, a former Newsweek and New York Times [NYT] editor, is the author of four other salacious Kennedy books, including “The Kennedy Curse” and “Just Jackie,” which were not exactly kind to the famous clan.
The Ted tome contains some new details about the day the senator was rushed to the hospital with what turned out to be a malignant brain tumor. According to Klein, Kennedy was stricken as he played with his dogs, Sunny and Splash, on the beach in Hyannisport.
“According to one family friend he fell in the sand and realized he could not move.”
The senator’s sad diagnosis - a malignant glioma in the left parietal lobe - set off a series of events that roiled America’s once-royal family, Klein says.
As Ted began to seek a successor, a rivalry developed between his wife, his nephew and his niece, Caroline Kennedy. It was Ted who insisted that Caroline make a bid for the seat Hillary Clinton would vacate so there would be “a Kennedy in the Senate” after he was gone.
But her disastrous campaign and New York Gov. David Paterson’s public reluctance to appoint the Camelot princess to succeed Clinton, humiliated and infuriated Caroline.
So much so that her three children sat her down and told her they didn’t like what politics was doing to their mother. She withdrew her candidacy that night, Klein said.
Klein also contends that Kennedy’s grim diagnosis has driven him back to a bad habit: drinking. Subsequently, he claims, Vicki and her father hatched a scheme to relocate the senator and his beloved sailboat Mya to Florida for the winter to get him away from enabler pals.
Vicki’s father, Edmund Reggie, had a friend who was trying to sell an estate on Biscayne Bay in Miami and that’s where Ted and Vicki spent the winter, Klein says.
The author also contends that Kennedy “had been drinking the night before” his seizure at President Obama’s inauguration.
The senior senator’s staff did not return an e-mail seeking comment.

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Ted Kennedy & Co. throw support behind Red Sox

It was a Kennedy family affair yesterday at Fenway Park [map], where a smiling Sen. Ted Kennedy braved the blustery Red Sox [team stats] opener in a luxury box over home plate with a pack of his nearest and dearest.
The senior senator, who earlier tossed out the ceremonial first pitch to Sox legend Jim Rice, was bundled up in his red team jacket as he took in the Olde Towne Team’s 5-3 win over the Tampa Bay Rays with his wife, Vicki, son U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy, niece Caroline Kennedy and grandkids Ted Kennedy III, 11, Grace Allen, 14, and Max Allen, 12.
Vicki told us that Ted Jr. and his wife, Kiki, would have made the trip, too, if they weren’t in Colorado with their daughter, Kiley, 14, who is competing in the USASA Nationals snowboard competition on Copper Mountain . (Kiley rides for Vermont’s Mount Mansfield Snowboard Club .)
“She won a first and a third,” gushed Kiley’s step-gran, who also took in the game with Mayor Tom Menino .
During the fourth inning, team owners John Henry and Tom Werner appeared in Ted’s box to present him with a framed photo of his Opening Day pitch. Wow, those boys work fast!
Sadly - for the Track - the team took a pass on throwing an Opening Day pregame sushi-and-hot dog ’do in the Jordan’s Third Base Deck for austerity reasons this year. So scrounging up Boston notables was a helluva task! Many, we hear, did all their season opener, ahem, celebrating on Monday and couldn’t take another day off. (Et tu, Greg Hill?)
So with the exception of the Kennedy clan, the Boston boldfacers we saw at the old ballyard were the same ol, same ol’ crowd.

(...)

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Is Vicki Kennedy ready to succeed?

Sen. Ted Kennedy, wintering in an undisclosed location in Florida, may never return to the Senate, friends say, as his battle with brain cancer enters its final rounds.
“He’s someplace sunny, near the water, where he can rest and sail,” said a pal of the senior senator. “Time is of the essence. It’s very sad.”
Kennedy was rushed to the hospital after he collapsed during a luncheon that followed President Obama’s inauguration, and returned to vote on the stimulus bill. Although family members have said publicly that the senator is doing “good,” privately those close to Kennedy say he may only have a few months to live.
“He’s very sick,” said another Kennedy associate. “He’s actually done well to get to this point.”
Kennedy was diagnosed last May with a malignant brain tumor and his prognosis was poor. According to pals, the senator spent every day that he could last summer on the waters off Hyannisport sailing his beloved yacht, Mya .
He has returned to Washington only sporadically since being diagnosed - most dramatically a month after his first seizure to cast the deciding vote on an important Medicare bill.
Because of Kennedy’s condition, off-the-record speculation about the future of his Senate seat has been rampant this week - especially in light of a seven-part Boring Broadsheet opus that is being widely viewed as a premature obituary. And yesterday’s installment was interpreted by some close to the matter as the first step in a torch-passing to Kennedy’s wife, Vicki.
“It appeared to be setting up Vicki’s senate campaign,” said one insider.
The story described the former Victoria Reggie as “a great lawyer” with “tremendous political skills” and “great sense of humor.”
It portrayed her family as Kennedy doppelgangers and Vicki’s father, Edmund Reggie, as one of Ted’s closest companions.
“The Reggies and their six children had more than a little Kennedy in them,” the BB wrote. “Edmund was an unabashed liberal from the heart of Dixie . . . ‘Last one in the pool is a Republican!’ the judge was known to bellow at his kids.”
Although Edmund Reggie is quoted often - including in an anecdote that started the series off earlier this week - no member of Ted’s family has said anything to the Globe on the record so far.
Word on the Hill is that some Kennedy staffers are quite unhappy with the series, finding it far too critical of Ted. Not so when it comes to Vicki, who the BB portrayed as a politically savvy, stabilizing influence on Ted. She is credited with helping him to secure re-election in a hard-fought battle with Mitt Romney after the near-career-destroying Palm Beach rape scandal.
“You wonder how much control she had over who they spoke to,” said a Kennedy source.
Interestingly, the Globe never mentions any of the Reggie family’s legal woes in the opus. Edmund Reggie was convicted in 1992 of misapplication of funds from a savings and loan he founded in 1959 that failed in 1987. He pleaded no contest to a similar charge in 1993 and served 120 days of home detention and paid a $30,000 fine. Vicki’s brother Raymond Reggie was sentenced to a year in jail after being convicted of bank fraud in 2005.
Should Kennedy be unable to finish out his senate term, which ends in 2012, a special election must be held within 145 to 160 days of the seat becoming vacant. The big question is: Will Kennedy make it known that he wants his wife to succeed him - a move that would almost assuredly guarantee Vicki the seat?
File Under: Family Business.

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Kennedy Airport north?

U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy makes regular use of Barnstable Municipal Airport in his travels to and from Washington D.C.

In recognition of that, as well as the prominence of the Senator and his family, Bob Howard, Yarmouth's representative to the Barnstable Municipal Airport commission, recommended that the new terminal building bear Kennedy’s name. “I think it would be fine and a nice gesture that you name this terminal the Edward M. Kennedy terminal,” Howard said.

At the same meeting, airport commissioner Michael Dunning read portions of a thank you letter from Victoria Reggie Kennedy, the senator’s wife. She thanked the airport for its professional handling of the Kennedy’s medical flight to Boston in May after a seizure.

Howard wasn’t sure how the recommendation would be met and said it would be fine if he was found out of order or “slapped down.” Neither was the case. Airport commission chairman Daniel Santos said that the committee would consider the recommendation.

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