DENVER – Sen. Ted Kennedy brought the Democratic faithful to cheers and tears last night as he emerged from a summer of treatment for brain cancer to vow that he’d be in Washington when a new president is sworn in.
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“My fellow Americans, it is so wonderful to be here, and nothing – nothing – is going to keep me away from this special gathering tonight,” Kennedy told the roaring crowd at Pepsi Center on the opening night of the Democratic National Convention.
Delegates wept openly as they waved printed blue “Kennedy” signs.
The Massachusetts senator’s niece, Caroline, introduced him, and had tears in her eyes as she watched his speech. Maria Shriver, California’s first lady, repeatedly wiped her eyes.
“So many of you have been with me in the happiest days and the hardest days,” added Kennedy, the Senate’s second-most senior member.
“I pledge to you that I will be there next January on the floor of the United States Senate” when a new president is in Washington, he declared.
“Teddy! Teddy!” the crowd chanted.
Joann White, a Massachusetts voter who lives in Italy and said she had met Kennedy several times, fanned herself with one hand and dried the stream of tears down her cheeks.
“He’s an inspiration for American at large and for people all over the world,” she said. “He’s Ted Kennedy, he’s irreplaceable.”
Harlem state Sen. Bill Perkins said, “I’m reminded of when I was here at this moment in 1980 as a Kennedy delegate, he gave this wonderful, rousing speech. To see him now, at this momentous occasion, giving a similar transformative speech, it’s just so exciting.”
In one of his most powerful lines, Kennedy described health care as a “fundamental right and not a privilege.”
And he lavished praise on Sen. Barack Obama, whom he endorsed in the primary race, describing him as someone who would “close the book on the old politics.”
Then, in a swipe at President Bush over the Iraq war, Kennedy declared Obama “will be a commander in chief who understands that young Americans in uniform must never be committed to a mistake.”
“The work begins anew, the hope rises again and the dream lives on,” he said as he wrapped up his seven-minute speech – hearkening back to the last line of his convention-floor speech in 1980, when he challenged Jimmy Carter for the nomination.
He also referred to his brother, President John F. Kennedy, and his efforts to put a man on the moon as an example of America’s can-do spirit. “He didn’t say it’s too far to get there, we shouldn’t even try,” Kennedy said.
He took to, and left, the stage with his wife, Vicki.
Kennedy, diagnosed with a malignant tumor in May, has undergone surgery and chemotherapy, but he stunned his colleagues when he showed up on the Senate floor in July to break a GOP filibuster on a Medicare bill – his first appearance since his treatment started.
But he has largely stayed out of the public eye as he’s recovered from treatment.
Kennedy arrived here Sunday night and immediately went to a local hospital for a checkup, given his immune system’s weakened state due to radiation and chemotherapy treatments.
The speech was part of a larger tribute to Kennedy, including a film about his life made by documentary-maker Ken Burns.
In her speech introducing her uncle, Caroline Kennedy described him as one of “two men who have changed my life in this country.”