Senators fear void after Kennedy

BOSTON - United States Senator Edward Kennedy's body will travel more than 110km from his Cape Cod home to Boston to lie in repose in a presidential library he helped develop in tribute to one of his slain brothers.

Family members were to attend a private Mass at Kennedy's Hyannis Port compound at 4am this morning (NZT), and the motorcade was scheduled to leave around an hour later.

It was to pass sites that were significant to the senator on the way to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, where his body will lie in repose until Saturday, a Senate office statement said.

A military honour guard will join members of his family, friends and current and former staff to stand vigil around the clock as thousands are expected to file past the closed casket to pay their respects.

An invitation-only memorial service will be held at the library tomorrow. On Sunday, President Barack Obama will speak at a private funeral Mass at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica - commonly known as the Mission Church - in Boston's Mission Hill neighbourhood.

A church official said former presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush also are expected to attend.

Kennedy prayed at the basilica every day in 2003 as his daughter, Kara, was successfully treated for lung cancer at a nearby hospital. The church became a place of hope and optimism for the senator, especially during his year-long battle with brain cancer before he died at age 77.

Kennedy will be buried on Sunday near his brothers - former President John F. Kennedy and former Senator Robert F. Kennedy - at the Arlington National Cemetery, in Virginia.

Kennedy is eligible for burial at Arlington because of his service in Congress as well as his two years in the Army from 1951 to 1953. He was a private first class and served in the military police in Paris.

Yesterday, the Lightship Nantucket - the vessel that marked the limits of the dangerous Nantucket Shoals in Massachusetts for more than 150 years - pulled up outside the Kennedy compound as dusk fell and illuminated the late senator's schooner as a tribute.

Kennedy's 15-month battle against brain cancer gave his supporters a chance denied to them when his brothers John and Robert were assassinated - in the words of Obama: "the blessing of time to say thank you and goodbye".

The President led an outpouring of praise for the last of the Kennedy brothers, whose longevity, heft and popularity in the Senate allowed him to build a legacy of legislative achievement in pursuit of liberal causes.

But the death of the "Lion of the Senate" leaves others to pursue the goal of his political life. Achieving universal healthcare coverage in the US now appears at once desperately close and horribly precarious.

Kennedy's office, one of the best-staffed legislative engines on Capitol Hill, claims 2500 bills, 500 of which have been signed into law, over a 47-year Senate career.

Stephen Hess, senior fellow emeritus at the Brookings Institution, said Kennedy's achievements are unlikely to be replicated. "Over time he became a very effective legislator, which was something that nobody had expected him to be when he was chosen for the Senate solely on the basis of who his brothers were. He had tremendous tenure in an organisation that is at least partly built on seniority, which got him the chairmanship of powerful committees. But he was also effective because he was able skilfully to cross the aisle and bring in support from opposition legislators."

Some legislators said the current stalemate over healthcare is the result of Kennedy's absence from the debate for the last few crucial months.

It is unclear whether the post-Kennedy Senate includes anyone with enough credibility among ideological opposites, dealmaking skills or knowledge to strike a quick compromise.

"There is nobody else like him," said Republican Senator Judd Gregg, who alternated with Kennedy over the years as chairman and ranking minority member of the health committee.

"Teddy was the only Democrat who could move their whole base," Senator Orrin Hatch, another veteran Republican, said. "If he finally agreed, the whole base would come along even if they didn't like it."

Kennedy won countless battles by embodying an increasingly rare type of bipartisanship. It was perceived not as a threat to ideology or money-raising prowess but as a way of getting something done, however imperfect.

"Bipartisanship takes a person that has leadership and personal charm, quite frankly, and a desire to get a result," said former Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott. "He didn't try to destroy you. That's what's happening in Washington now. It's gotten so mean."

Over 47 years in the Senate, Kennedy evolved into an institution himself, equal parts liberal icon and effective dealmaker who combined those skills to forge agreement on some of the most sweeping and contentious social reforms of his time.

Kennedy worked out an agreement with President George W. Bush on the No Child Left Behind Act, which brought about a vast increase in federal influence in the nation's schools. He regularly worked with Hatch, notably on a federally funded programme for people with HIV/Aids, health insurance for lower-income children and tax breaks to encourage the development of medicine for rare diseases.

When he compromised, Kennedy's base may have grumbled but did not question his fidelity to liberal principles. Republicans trusted him to be straight with them in tough negotiations and not make it personal.

Without Kennedy, the 99-member chamber lacks anyone playing precisely his role - to dole out the goodwill and procedural expertise necessary to make the Senate wheels spin through controversial legislation. The Democratic caucus falls from an effective super-majority of 60, enough to kill Republican stalling tactics, to 59, including two independents.

No one is irreplaceable in the Senate, a popular saying goes. But Senator John McCain called Kennedy just that yesterday. McCain, last year's Republican presidential nominee, was even clearer during the weekend.

"He had a way of sitting down with the parties at a table and making the right concessions, which really are the essence of successful negotiations," McCain said.

"It's huge that he's absent," McCain added. If Kennedy had been engaged in the healthcare debate past June, when he handed chairmanship duties to Democratic Senator Chris Dodd, "I think the healthcare reform might be in a very different place today."

THE FAREWELL

Mourning: Edward Kennedy's body will lie in repose today (NZT) in the Smith Centre at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston.

Services: A memorial service will be held on Saturday at the Smith Centre. The funeral will be on Sunday at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica in Boston. President Barack Obama will deliver a eulogy.

Burial: Sunday in Arlington National Cemetery outside Washington. The proposed grave site is near the graves of his brothers Senator Robert Kennedy and President John F. Kennedy.

- INDEPENDENT, AP