I felt a curious sensation earlier this week when Edward Kennedy, standing before a roomful of shrieking undergraduates in Washington, endorsed Barack Obama for president. It was not the rush of emotion that David Brooks described in the next day's New York Times, or irritation at the standard Kennedy spectacle - although the requisite elements were all there: The red-nosed, Rabelaisian senator, his medicated offspring, and his niece, her grin immobilized by surgery.
No, the sensation was familiar, and took me back 40 years to the winter of 1967-68, when I was working as a student volunteer at Eugene McCarthy headquarters in downtown Washington. My primary task was to open mail, collate documents, and purchase jelly donuts to satisfy the appetite of the campaign's slovenly press secretary, Seymour Hersh.
At the time, it will be remembered, McCarthy had decided to run for president because the sentimental favorite of the antiwar Democrats, Robert Kennedy, could not stir himself to challenge Lyndon Johnson. More profile than courage, it was said at the time. And of course, it was only after McCarthy had come close to defeating LBJ in the New Hampshire primary - prompting Johnson, shortly thereafter, to withdraw from the race - that Kennedy "reassessed" his position and announced his own candidacy.
Among those McCarthy enthusiasts who had "come clean for Gene," and embarked on what had seemed like a suicidal venture (among whom I counted myself), Kennedy was held in considerable contempt: His cute disavowals of interest in running amused no one, and his swift appropriation of McCarthy's capital caused indignation. When Kennedy finally announced he was running in the Senate Caucus Room, with his miniskirted wife onstage and their dozen children crawling among the wires and cameras, it seemed less a political act than a chapter in celebrity melodrama.
Which, to his credit, Kennedy seemed to perceive. He is said to have complained to associates that McCarthy enjoyed the allegiance of the A students while he was left with the B students. Certainly, we campus McCarthyites saw it that way, and noticed that when Kennedy spoke in public he seemed to attract what we called "screamers" - the sort of girls who had greeted The Beatles at the airport, and their slightly bewildered boyfriends - whose interest in Bobby did not seem political. McCarthy was accompanied on the campaign trail by Robert Lowell; Kennedy enjoyed the company of Roosevelt Grier, and Sonny and Cher.
Whether this specimen of Democratic snobbery has any application to the current election cycle I cannot say. Just as Robert Kennedy's crowds were larger and louder than Eugene McCarthy's in 1968, it is undoubtedly true that the saga of the Kennedy family - especially in the half-century since the assassinations of John and Robert - resonates with a certain kind of Democrat in 2008. But it is difficult to say how deeply such emotions run, and whether the excitement of a televised rally translates into anything like political action, conviction, or allegiance.
Barack Obama's appeal, in theatrical terms, is evident enough, and he is lucky to be running against Hillary Clinton. But time passes, enthusiasm wanes, and excitement cannot be sustained indefinitely. Obama seems to inspire in his followers the same sensations that tied Kennedy to his fans. The question is whether this can be translated into millions of votes for president, or is something that can survive and adapt in the aftermath of unforeseen events.
