Kennedy to support Obama by luring votes from Clinton

WASHINGTON — Sen. Edward Kennedy, who endorsed Sen. Barack Obama's candidacy on Monday, plans to campaign aggressively this week for the Democrat in Arizona, California and New Mexico, hoping to influence voters torn between Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Kennedy, D-Mass., implored Americans "to turn the page on the old politics of misrepresentation and distortion," during a rally at American University in Washington, D.C.

After Caroline Kennedy and Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., made their own endorsements, Kennedy offered a fierce rebuttal to questions that Obama's rivals have raised about his experience and readiness for the job.

"He will be a president who refuses to be trapped in the patterns of the past," Kennedy said. "He is a leader who sees the world clearly without being cynical. He is a fighter who cares passionately about the causes he believes in without demonizing those who hold a different view."

The political blessing from Kennedy, was far from a routine endorsement. Controversial among Republicans, he is nonetheless influential among many Democrats and could be particularly helpful in courting older voters, union members and Latinos. All candidates, including Clinton, vigorously pursued his endorsement because of the symbolism and lore it represents.

However, not every famous Kennedy is behind Obama. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the eldest daughter of the late Robert F. Kennedy, said Sunday that she, her brother Robert Jr. and sister Kerry were backing Clinton and thought that "she shares so many of the concerns of my father."

Sen. Kennedy, who associates said had become furious at the tone of the Democratic campaign, including the words and actions of former President Bill Clinton, said Obama would usher in a new era of politics.

"From the beginning, he opposed the war in Iraq. And let no one deny that truth," he said, an apparent reference to the former president's statement that Obama's early anti-war stance was a "fairy tale."

"With Barack Obama we will close the book on the old politics of race against race, gender against gender, ethnic group against ethnic group, and straight against gay," Kennedy said.

"With Barack Obama, there is a new national leader who has given America a different kind of campaign, not just about himself, but about all of us," Kennedy said. "A campaign about the country we will become, if we can rise above the old politics that parses us into separate groups and puts us at odds with one another."

Obama said he was humbled by the comparisons drawn with John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy.

"I was too young to remember John Kennedy and I was just a child when Robert Kennedy ran for president," Obama, 46, said. "But in the stories I heard growing up, I saw how my grandparents and mother spoke about them and about that period in our nation's life as a time of great hope and achievement."

Kennedy began by paying tribute to Sen. Clinton's advocacy for issues such as health care and women's rights. "Whoever is our nominee will have my enthusiastic support," he said.

But he quickly pivoted to a strong endorsement of Obama, who he said "has extraordinary gifts of leadership and character, matched to the extraordinary demands of this moment in history."

And without acknowledging that he was employing one of Hillary Clinton's signature lines, he said of Obama: "I know that he's ready to be president on day one."

Compiled from The New York Times, McClatchy Newspapers and

The Associated Press.