Kennedy's speech: Drama amid dynasties' passing

DENVER — Neither family wanted it this way, neither the Kennedys nor the Clintons. But the opening of the Democratic convention on Monday brought a stark contrast: a bittersweet public celebration of the life of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who is suffering from brain cancer, and an embittered private drama about the terms on which the Clintons would yield the party to Sen. Barack Obama.

Kennedy, who endorsed Obama in January, had hoped to lead a hearty, full-throated night of anointing the next generation. Instead, the tribute to him took on the weight of a farewell to the last of the storied Kennedy brothers, with an intensity that rivaled the excitement around Michelle Obama's speech about the Democrats' next standard-bearer, her husband.

As one political dynasty was celebrating its legacy and ceding the political stage on Monday night, the other dominant family of the Democratic Party was struggling to protect its legacy and accept its own exit from the spotlight.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Bill Clinton had once hoped this convention would be theirs, an exultation of past and future Clinton White Houses. Instead, they were coming face to face with shrunken, supporting roles.

Frustrations abounded most pointedly for Hillary Clinton: At a breakfast with New York Democrats on Monday morning, she was forced to rebut a new television advertisement for Sen. John McCain that used her past attacks on Obama against him.

"Now I understand that the McCain campaign is running ads trying to divide us," said Clinton, who is scheduled to speak at the convention tonight. "I'm Hillary Clinton, and I do not approve that message," she said, to laughter and applause.

And she faced questions about comments from Clinton friends that her husband remained aggrieved from the bruising primary battle and was unhappy with his speaking assignment at the convention.

At one point, she told aides the Obama campaign could end the bad blood with her husband by simply acknowledging his policy accomplishments and efforts at racial reconciliation in the 1990s — in amends for what the Clintons saw as a lack of respect from Obama during the primaries. One aide, recounting this conversation on Monday, observed that Clinton was in an old role, looking out for her husband while trying to protect her own future.

As one Clinton fundraiser put it in an interview on Monday, "Hillary often says that Bill isn't a complicated person — the Obama people don't have to do much to make peace with him."

If the Obamas see soulmates among the Kennedys, they see the Clintons as, if not spoilers, then at heart a more complicated and tactical family.

The same could be said of the Kennedy-Clinton relationship. At the 1992 convention where he was nominated, in his biographical film, Clinton used the grainy footage of him meeting President John F. Kennedy at the White House as a teenager in 1963 to try to establish a natural progression. The two families became friendly (though not especially close) in the 1990s. Yet their bond was ruptured, badly, when Sen. Kennedy endorsed Obama in January.

The Clintons and the Kennedys had brought glamour to one another on their much-photographed sailing trips off Martha's Vineyard years ago. That was over. Now the Obamas were bringing a fresh burst of glamour to the Kennedys, and the Kennedys were offering a fuller embrace to the Obamas than they ever gave the Clintons; Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, the senator's niece and the daughter of President Kennedy, even signed on in a substantive role, helping Obama select his vice-presidential nominee, Sen. Joseph Biden.

Millions of Americans voted for Clinton this year, and Obama did, at times, minimize the successes of the Clinton administration. And Bill Clinton believes, viscerally, that the Obama camp framed him as a race-baiter, friends say. At the same time, even campaign advisers to Hillary Clinton admit that her husband was blustery and offensive about Obama at times — as Kennedy once warned him against.

"Someday the Clintons and Obama may become good friends," said James Carville, a friend and longtime political adviser to the Clintons. "For now, this is a hard, human process — making room on the stage for everyone."

Robert Shrum, a longtime adviser to Kennedy, said that just as Clinton's ascent in 1992 marked a generational shift in the party, Obama's rise was another watershed moment that resonated in different ways for many Democrats.

"Kennedy's embrace of Obama was in part about seeing personal qualities in Obama that he saw in his brothers," Shrum said. "For the Clintons, who were in and out of power much more recently, it is more complicated. The Democrats will have a new leader in November, and President Clinton and Hillary are still coming to terms with that."

After the opening-night audience at the convention was shown a video tribute to the Massachusetts senator, introduced by his niece, the iconic Democrat took the stage despite his illness.

In a firm voice, he told a cheering crowd that his is "a season of hope." And he added: "I pledge to you that I will be there next January on the floor of the United States Senate."

That had special meaning given the bleak prognosis he faces with his disease.

"The hope rises again and the dream lives on," he said after his seven minutes at the microphone, to thunderous cheers as he stepped away into the arms of his wife, Victoria.

For their part, the Clintons have declined interview requests in recent days. Obama, campaigning in Iowa on Monday, said he had told Bill Clinton that he could say whatever he liked at the convention. He said he had no doubts the former first couple had embraced his candidacy.

"There are going to be some of Sen. Clinton's supporters who we're going to have to work hard to persuade to come on board — that's not surprising," Obama said. "But if you take a look this week, I am absolutely convinced that both Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton understand the stakes."

Additional information from The Associated Press