Crown prince

Patrick Kennedy overcame asthma, scandal, and an early distaste for politics to emerge as the fifth-ranking Democrat in the US House of Representatives. Brown political scientist Darrell M. West tells how it happened

by Ian Donnis

After coming to politics somewhat reluctantly, US Representative Patrick Kennedy has enjoyed a rapid ascent. The 33-year-old congressman, who came surprisingly close to losing his first bid for the US House in 1994, is the highest elected Kennedy of his generation. As chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, he's the architect of the Democrats' drive to regain a majority this fall in the US House of Representatives. Darrell M. West, a political science professor at Brown University, who tells Kennedy's story in the recently published biography Patrick Kennedy: The Rise to Power (Pearson Education), calls him the political crown prince of America's closest thing to a royal family.

West, an astute and oft-quoted political observer, became interested in writing about Kennedy because of the growing role played by celebrities in American politics. Unlike previous centuries, when the halls of Congress were full of farmers, merchants and others seeking upward mobility, the mix of public cynicism, high campaign costs, weak political parties, and overweening media influence has intensified the importance of fame and personal wealth. If celebrity is reshaping American politics, "no one illustrates that more than Patrick Kennedy," West says.

The youngest of three children of Joan Kennedy and US Senator Edward M. "Ted" Kennedy, Patrick Kennedy was afflicted by asthma as a child. Because of his illness, he was shy and reticent while coming of age -- a sharp contrast to other Kennedy children. Patrick Kennedy was disinclined to pursue politics until his cousin, Joe, ran for Congress from Massachusetts' Eighth District in 1986. As West writes, Kennedy has also been touched by five scandals, from experimentation with drugs in prep school to fund-raising controversies in 1996, any one of which could have ended his political career. Instead, he steadily gained strength while moving in 10 years from being a state representative to the fifth-ranking Democrat in the US House of Representatives.

West's book, a vivid chronicle of Rhode Island's recent political history, is generally favorable toward Kennedy. He's described as someone motivated by a sincere belief in public service, but also a pragmatist who moved to the center, away from his proud self-description as a liberal, as the Gingrich revolution unfolded on the eve of his entry into national politics. In the same way, Kennedy has tremendously benefited from his membership in America's leading political family, invoking the Kennedy name and using his personal wealth when it suited his purposes, and cutting himself off from the press when it didn't.

What is most notable about the Kennedys, West says, is their ability to dream big. In closing his book, he notes that a trio of experienced local reporters didn't blink when Kennedy, as a 26-year-old state rep, calmly said, "yes," when asked if he'd like to run for president some day. West, who is working on his tenth book, spoke with the Phoenix earlier this week in his office at Brown.

Q: With Patrick Kennedy at the helm of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), the House Democrats have built a large financial advantage over their Republican counterparts. Will the Democrats retake the majority in the House this fall?
A: The House Democrats are very well positioned to do well in the 2000 election. For the first time in recent memory they actually have more cash on hand than the Republicans. I can't remember the last time that was the case. And Patrick Kennedy obviously deserves a lot of credit for using his star power to raise money for Democrats across the country. My sense is Democrats have a pretty good shot of getting the House back. They only need a net change of six or seven seats, and they'll be back in the majority. Dick Gephardt will be speaker, and Democrats will be chairing the major committees.

Q: Patrick Kennedy was 31 when he was chosen as chairman of the DCCC -- an unusually young age for such a prominent position. Why did he get the post, and how would you rate his performance in aspects other than fund-raising?

A: Patrick's top political mentor has been Dick Gephardt, and Gephardt is the individual who appoints the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Gephardt understood that money would be crucial for Democrats to be able to get their message out, and so he chose Patrick, I believe, because he knew they'd be able to raise a lot of money . . . Patrick and Gephardt have a close working relationship, so there would not be factional disputes, which sometimes have been a problem for House Democrats in the past, where you have the Democratic leader and the DCCC chair wanting to target the resources in different ways.

I think Kennedy has done a pretty good job as chair of the DCCC. The major task beyond fund-raising has been, or is, candidate recruitment. The goal is really to get the strongest possible challengers. Patrick has been very good at recruiting strong challengers, at persuading some House members who were thinking about running for other office to stay in the House, so they could hold those seats. He has enlisted everyone, from the president on down, to make calls to individuals who were wavering in terms of whether they wanted to run for the House this year. So I think on the dimensions of fund-raising and candidate recruitment, he has performed very well.

Q: A lot of Americans, even those who don't follow politics, have the sense that our political system is poisoned by the influence of money. Why isn't it a political liability for someone like Patrick Kennedy to have such a prominent role in campaign fund-raising?
A: Money is always controversial, and Democrats have made extensive use of soft money contributions to build their war chest. It hasn't become a political negative just because the public is so cynical about all kinds of politicians, and they see both Republicans and Democrats relying on fund-raising practices that citizens don't particularly like, [so] it essentially neutralizes that issue as a controversy. If everybody is doing it, citizens don't really have any single individual or single party they can blame for the problem.

Q: What were the most surprising things you learned while researching your book on Patrick Kennedy?
A: One surprising thing was how complicated his relationship with his father is. The public image is one big happy family. And when Patrick was growing up, his father was gone a lot, traveling around the country on various liberal causes. The thing that I discovered in the course of doing my interviews was that his father is really a tough task-master. When Patrick first ran for the Assembly in 1988, Ted would often call campaign staffers first thing in the morning and say, "Okay, how many doors did Patrick knock on last night?" and whatever number they would give, Ted would always say, "He's not working hard enough. Make him knock on more doors tonight." And I think that kinds of illustrates the fact that Ted really wants Patrick to succeed, has really pushed him.

Of course, one of the nice things about Patrick entering Congress is, I think, he has now developed a much closer relationship with his father than previously was the case -- just because they're both physically in the same place. They try and have lunch or breakfast together once a week, trade political intelligence, but it's an interesting relationship in a lot of respects.

I think one of the most interesting sections of the book is the description of the General Assembly and how it has changed over the course of the last 10 years. I interviewed a number of people who served in the General Assembly and watched the General Assembly, and it's actually impressive how the Assembly has gone from a top-down run body, where the leaders really exercised almost complete control, to now more of an institution that has gone through a cycle of political reform and the influence is a little more politically diffuse.

In the book, I tell stories about different deals that were cut between legislators, the impact of the banking crisis on the political process, and I really tried to give people a sense of Rhode Island politics, so they can understand what Patrick was dealing with and the challenges that he confronted as he developed his political career.

Q: You catalogue five political crises that Patrick Kennedy has faced in his political career and indicate how, for some politicians, any one of these would have been politically lethal. How is it that Kennedy emerged stronger after each of those?
A: Patrick has displayed a surprising dexterity in dealing with problems, from his own high school drug use, to the Palm Beach rape trial of his cousin, to his own campaign fund-raising problems coming out of the 1996 elections. What impressed me was that any one of these crises could have done him in, and with a typical politician sometimes it takes only one of those events to end a political career. I think when you go back and look at how Patrick responded to each one of them, he was very adept about responding to the crisis, sometimes going on attack and making his critics the issue, as opposed to his own behavior.

And he is actually well positioned, because scandal politics are now the norm in American politics and he has developed a lot of experience that has taught him how to survive political scandals.

Q: Your book describes Patrick Kennedy as being somewhat reticent and inarticulate. How did he prove to be so politically shrewd?
A: Patrick is not the most intelligent person in the world and hardly the most articulate, but he's politically sophisticated and a lot of people over the years have underestimated him, because the superficial impression they have of him is not very positive, and he beats them. He really understands how the political process works. Of course, he's had the advantage of drawing on his father's experience and his cousin, Joe Kennedy's experiences, and those things have given him a surefootedness in dealing with politics that contributed to his extraordinary political success in a very short period of time

Q: How does Kennedy square his stance as a passionate defender of society's have-nots with his rightward movement on issues like the death penalty and support for dubious military programs like the B-2 bomber?
A: In 1994, Kennedy was very worried about being portrayed as an ultra-liberal. and he took steps, basically following the Clinton model of moving to the center on a few issues, the death penalty being one of the most noteworthy. And in doing so, he was able to protect himself politically and then survive the Gingrich revolution where, for a time, people thought Republicans really were going to take over government and be in power for a very long period of time. The thing that interests me about is his political choices is there's a very interesting blend of clear principle and political pragmatism. It sometimes allows him to surprise his opponents with unconventional moves.

Q: Along with his flaws, Kennedy is described as very hardworking and having other real political strengths. How would his political career be different if he wasn't part of the Kennedy family?
A: If his last name were not Kennedy, he'd be chair of a Rhode Island House Committee, not the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Certainly, the Kennedy name has been of enormous benefit. He has used it to cultivate the media, as well as to raise money. But I think it's unfair to characterize him only as a Kennedy creation, because he has shown political skills that are highly advanced. He has dealt with the occasional downside of being a Kennedy very effectively, and I think if he weren't as politically shrewd as he has been, he would not have gone as far as he has.

Q: Despite all his advantages, Patrick Kennedy, in his first race for Congress outpaced a political unknown, Kevin Vigilante, by a surprisingly small margin. Why was he almost defeated?
A: It's a big jump going from the state legislature to the US Congress, and people have much higher expectations for who you are and what you're going to do. In that race, Kevin Vigilante ran a good campaign in certain ways and certainly was a very strong challenger. But Kennedy was helped by Vigilante's relative inexperience when it came to politics. And so, Patrick had certain liabilities that could have been exploited that weren't. But I do think that that was a very tough race, and it wasn't pre-ordained that Kennedy automatically was going to win.

Q: One of the themes of your book is how Patrick Kennedy carved out his own identity as part of a famous family. What have been the key factors in his success?
A: Patrick had a difficult childhood and has overcome a lot. I think one of the things that has helped him overcome various problems is that he understands his own limitations and his own weaknesses, and works hard to improve them and hires people who can help him get better, from speech coaches to media consultants to political strategists. He has enough resources that he can get the help and find the political mentors he has needed in order to advance politically.

Q: Patrick Kennedy benefited politically from the backlash against both the state banking crisis and the independent counsel's investigation of President Clinton. How has he fared in moving forward in the absence of this kind of crisis?
A: Kennedy has moved forward by having a clear sense of what he has to accomplish. Every few years, he takes a personal inventory of where he is and where he wants to go, and thinks strategically in a long-term sense about what he needs to do in order to get where he wants to be down the road I think that's been an important skill that's helped him to now become the fifth-ranking House Democrat and the highest elected Kennedy of his generation.

Q: You mentioned some fundamental changes in the operation of the General Assembly. In what other ways has Rhode Island politics changed over the last 10 or 15 years?
A: We have seen almost a complete revolution in Rhode Island politics over the last decade, in the sense of, I think, that more than two-thirds of the General Assembly has turned over. All five of the statewide officials have turned over, and even much of the Supreme Court is different. In this tumultuous time period, it was fascinating to watch how Patrick Kennedy navigated the tides which were running very strong during those years.

There were other reformers in the General Assembly who positioned themselves as outsiders and sought to take advantage of the banking crisis and to run for higher office. Every single one of them failed. Patrick was the only one of the group who was able to jump to the next level.

Certainly, his personal resources were a major factor in this. Political shrewdness was a major help to him. But I think he also understood in the early '90s when the economy was bad and there was a lot of discontent with government, it was important to be a reformer and to position yourself as an outsider. But then as the economy prospered in the rest of the '90s, people then didn't want political outsiders as much as they wanted people who had contacts, who had experience and could deliver things for the state. And so, he was able to understand how the larger political context was changing and to move with that tide as well.

Ian Donnis can be reached at idonnis[a]phx.com.