In 1979, the man I worked for, a young New York City Councilman named Tony Olivieri, decided that he had had enough of Jimmy Carter, and took it upon himself to launch a local Draft Kennedy movement. There wasn’t much to do to forward that cause, since Ted Kennedy wasn’t mounting a campaign just yet. So all we did was get a bunch of NEW YORKERS FOR KENNEDY buttons made and hold a press conference where we passed them out, and that was about all that could be done. And then Tony became very ill with a brain tumor, and eventually incapacitated, which emant that those of us who were his aides had to represent him at various meetings and functions and events. While Tony was growing weaker, Kennedy, seemingly without an idea why he should become a candidate, slid into the race, and in 1980 began a weak and disorganized and inarticulate effort to unseat Carter. It was pretty nearly over before it started, but Kennedy hung in there, and amid defeat after defeat in the early primaries, he seemed to find his voice and his rationale and his inspiration. By the time the New York 
primary came around in March, Kennedy was plunging ahead full throttle. I attended a rally for him one morning, in an auditorium near Penn Station, not an event open to the general public but just for a few hundred political professionals and potential delegates and others who were backing him. I remember when he came out the crowd cheered hard and enthusiastically, and while the applause was still high, Kennedy joyously stoked it by calling out in his rich, bold, baritone the names of people in the crowd. “DAAAAY-vid DINK-ins!” he would say, and the cheering would start all over again. “ROOOOOOTH MESSSS-inger!. . . . . . .MEEEEEER-iam FRIEEEEEEED-lander!” He went on and on, and the cheering went on and on, and his trick of sharing the spotlight bonded his supporters to him even more closely. It was a splendid political performance, and in a decision that was probably worth little more than truculent Fuck You, Jim, he won the New York primary. Tonight, Ted Kennedy is being eulogized for his splendid career, for his stirring oratory (“I had golden friends”). for his passion as a leader and his skill as a legislator. I don’t think anybody really has an idea how very much we will miss him. It will be like waking up tomorrow to find that the Empire State Building has been stolen away.
