Edward Moore “Ted” Kennedy (February 22, 1932 – August 25, 2009) was a United States Senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party. First elected in November 1962, he was elected nine times and served for 46 years in the U.S. Senate. At the time of his death, he was the second most senior member of the Senate, and the third-longest-serving senator in U.S. history. For many years the most prominent living member of the Kennedy family, he was the son of Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., the youngest brother of President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert F. Kennedy, both victims of assassinations, and the father of Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy.

Kennedy entered the Senate in a 1962 special election to fill the seat once held by his brother John. He was elected to a full six-year term in 1964 and was reelected seven more times. The 1969 Chappaquiddick incident resulted in the death of automobile passenger Mary Jo Kopechne; Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident, and the incident significantly damaged his chances of ever becoming President of the United States. His one attempt, in the 1980 U.S. presidential election, resulted in a primary campaign loss to incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter.

Kennedy was known for his oratorical skills; his 1968 eulogy for his brother Robert and his 1980 Democratic National Convention rallying cry for modern American liberalism were among his best-known speeches. He became known as “The Lion of the Senate” through his long tenure and influence. More than 300 bills that Kennedy and his staff wrote were enacted into law. He was a proud liberal who believed government can and should play a role to make America a more economically just society, but was also known for working with Republicans to find compromises among senators with disparate views. Kennedy played a major role in passing many laws, including laws addressing immigration, cancer research, health insurance, apartheid, disability discrimination, AIDS care, civil rights, mental health benefits, children’s health insurance, education and volunteering. In the 2000s, he led several unsuccessful immigration reform efforts. Over the course of decades, Kennedy’s “cause of my life” was the enactment of universal health care, which he continued to work toward during the Obama administration.

In May 2008, Kennedy was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor which limited his appearances in the Senate. He died on August 25, 2009, at his home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. At the time of his death, he had come to be viewed as the “voice” and “conscience” of American progressivism.

“It’s better to send in the Peace Corps than the Marine Corps.”
Ted Kennedy

“It’s time that Gerry Adams free himself from the IRA. We cannot in Western countries have a political party that has its own private army, particularly one that’s been associated with criminality and violence.”
Ted Kennedy

“Our struggle is not with some monarch named George who inherited the crown. Although it often seems that way.”
Ted Kennedy

“My brother [Robert] need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.”
Ted Kennedy

“Make no mistake about it! There is an organized movement against organized labor and it’s called the Bush Administration.”
Ted Kennedy

“I think about my brothers every day.”
Ted Kennedy

“Do we operate under a system of equal justice under law? Or is there one system for the average citizen and another for the high and mighty?”
Ted Kennedy

“The war in Iraq itself has not made America safer and has not made the world safer.”
Ted Kennedy

“The President’s handling of the war has been a toxic mix of ignorance, arrogance, and stubborn ideology. No amount of Presidential rhetoric or preposterous campaign spin can conceal the truth about the steady downward spiral in our national security since President Bush made the decision to go to war in Iraq.”
Ted Kennedy

“The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dreams shall never die.”
Ted Kennedy, Democratic National Convention, August 1980.

“Well, here I don’t go again”
Ted Kennedy, on not running for president in 1988.

“What we have in the United States is not so much a health-care system as a disease-care system”
Ted Kennedy, in 1994, on health care reform for which he campaigned throughout his life.

“With Barack Obama, we will turn the page on the old politics of misrepresentation and distortion. With Barack Obama we will close the book on the old politics of race against race, gender against gender, ethnic group against ethnic group, and straight against gay”
Ted Kennedy, endorsing Barack Obama for president, January 2008.