PrintJanuary 31, 2008
Did Clinton's LBJ Comments drive Teddy in Obama's Arms?
Evidently, Ted Kennedy is very serious when it comes to the legacy of his family:
Apparently, part of the reason why the liberal lion from Massachusetts embraced Obama was because of a perceived slight at the Kennedy family's civil rights legacy by the other Democratic presidential primary frontrunner, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.).Hillary said before the New Hampshire primary that civil rights legislation needed LBJ to be passed, totally ignoring the fact that John Kenedy first proposed civil rights in August of 1963. Evidently, this angered Kennedy who then promptly endorsed Senator Obama over his long-time ally in the Senate.
Sources say Kennedy was privately furious at Clinton for her praise of President Lyndon Baines Johnson for getting the 1964 Civil Rights Act accomplished. Jealously guarding the legacy of the Kennedy family dynasty, Senator Kennedy felt Clinton's LBJ comments were an implicit slight of his brother, President John F. Kennedy, who first proposed the landmark civil rights initiative in a famous televised civil rights address in June 1963.
One anonymous source described Kennedy as having a "meltdown" in reaction to Clinton's comments.
On such little things are elections won and lost...
