Passionate Opposition

Passionate Opposition
Despite another loss in 2004, progressive Democrats like Ted Kennedy remain optimistic, as the GOP fractures over Social Security reform and President Bush’s ambitious domestic agenda
WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY
By Eleanor Clift
Newsweek
Updated: 3:54 p.m. ET Jan. 14, 2005

Jan. 14 - Sitting down to breakfast Thursday morning with reporters, Sen. Ted Kennedy pushed away the plate with eggs, bacon and sausage, stealing only a few bites as he talked. He brought charts to illustrate his new progressive proposals on education and Medicare, and when a reporter asked if he was “in denial” over the Democrats losing another congressional election, Kennedy said, “Cruel analysis,” and laughed.
“We’re not talking about 1994,” he said. Back then, Democrats were so disheartened at losing the House and Senate that party donors pulled back. Kennedy recalled spending six hours at a fund-raiser in Miami and raising only $1,600. The dynamics are completely different this time, he said. When he attended his sister Rosemary’s funeral in Wisconsin earlier this month, two nuns told him about an event outside Madison where 1,100 grass-roots activists gathered on behalf of the progressive agenda....