Caroline Kennedy: Ted Would Be 'Tremendously Proud' of Obama
Sept. 5, 2012 -- A video celebrating Ted Kennedy's career in politics played Tuesday evening during the Democratic National Convention. Although it has been three years since the "Lion of the Senate" lost his battle with brain cancer, the man behind the booming voice that enthusiastically endorsed Barack Obama in 2008 is still a force in the 2012 campaign.
The crowd at the convention especially loved the part of the tribute that showed Ted Kennedy debating Mitt Romney during the 1994 Senate campaign.
"It was just so classic Teddy that he was somehow able to appear and be relevant again and again," Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of President John F. Kennedy, told ABC News anchor David Muir. "We saw that with health care, it was such a tremendous achievement of the president to get that done, and then last night when he popped up debating Mitt Romney, it really made me smile."
For Caroline Kennedy, 54, who is scheduled to speak Thursday at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., this is the first convention she's attended in more than a decade without her uncle.
"The last, I guess, three conventions I introduced my uncle Teddy so that was a lot fun for us. ... I was just honored to be able to do that," Kennedy said. "I miss him, and I think the video last night shows that many other people feel the same way, so that was a really nice chance to reconnect with his spirit and feel inspired by it all over again."
Kennedy endorsed Obama with her uncle in 2008.
"I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them," she wrote in an op-ed for The New York Times. "But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president - not just for me but for a new generation of Americans."
Today, almost four years into Obama's presidency, Kennedy said she still felt as inspired as she did on the day she endorsed him and said she was ready to campaign for him again.
"I think he did a tremendous job bringing our economy back from such a difficult, difficult recession, and our country is safe, we're getting out of the wars, the auto industry is coming back, he's done a lot on education," Kennedy told Muir. "I can go down the list. ... I really always find it puzzling when people sort of ask, you know, what has he done, because anyone else who'd done that much could pretty much take it easy, but he needs four more years to keep it going."
As for what her uncle would think of Obama's first term, Kennedy said he would be pleased.
"I think he'd be tremendously proud of all of that President Obama has accomplished," Kennedy said. "I think he really saw someone who would carry the work forward on the issues he cared about, and I think that he would be thrilled to be here if he could."
