Same Kennedy spirit lives on in different forms

Who will carry the Kennedy torch of public service now?

"I think it's over," said former Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, a close friend of Jack Kennedy's. "I don't think there are any left" in the next generation of Kennedys whose work can compare with their parents' generation.

But Wendy Schiller, a political-science professor at Brown University, suggests a different view: "Why would you even want to step into those shoes, let alone fill them?"

The strong commitment to public service persists in the next generation, she believes, without always involving a run for office.

"The Kennedys right now are really doing a lot of things outside the public sector that are having an impact," Schiller said. "They are reshaping and redrawing the Kennedy legacy in new ways, and expanding it."

Former Sen. Harris Wofford of Pennsylvania, one of Jack Kennedy's closest aides and a founding father of the Peace Corps, said, "It's the same spirit in different forms."

Schiller said, "Eunice is a perfect example of the power of public service outside of public office." Eunice Shriver pushed the next generation of Kennedys to be as competitive about public service as about touch football.

Every one of Eunice's five children is active in public service. Maria is first lady of California; Robert sits on the Santa Monica City Council and runs a company dedicated to philanthropy; Anthony Paul founded Best Buddies International, an organization that helps people with intellectual disabilities; Timothy is chairman and chief executive officer of Special Olympics; and Mark manages U.S. programs for Save the Children.

Ted's son Patrick, a representative from Rhode Island, has taken the fight for the dispossessed into a new realm: the mentally ill. He has decided that fighting discrimination against people with depression, schizophrenia and substance-abuse problems is every bit as important as the first civil-rights battles his dad and uncles fought for African Americans.

"It's not like I went to my dad and said, 'I want to run for Congress because I want to continue our civil-rights legacy by taking up the issue of mental illness,' " said Patrick. But his own struggles with bipolar disorder and substance abuse made him more aware of the need to champion the rights of those with mental illness.

Ted's other son, Teddy Jr., who lost a leg to cancer when he was 12, has been a lifelong advocate for the disabled.

Bobby Jr., Robert's third child, heads an alliance of environmental groups that keeps watch over the cleanliness of rivers, bays and lakes. Over the years his political activism on environmental issues has occasionally landed him in prison.

"We have to understand that this country is more than just a place where people can come and make their pile bigger and whoever dies with the most stuff wins," Bobby Jr. said in a recent speech. "America means more than that."

President Kennedy's daughter, Caroline, cut short her effort to win an appointment to fill Hillary Rodham Clinton's New York Senate seat, but Caroline continues her philanthropic work for New York City's public schools. She also has tried to continue her father's legacy in the books she has written, including "Profiles in Courage for Our Time."

Before he could clarify his own political ambitions, Caroline's brother, John Jr., launched George magazine to bring a new audience into the discussion of politics and popular culture.

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the eldest of Bobby and wife Ethel's 11 children, served two terms as Maryland's lieutenant governor before her failed run for the state's top elective office.

Kerry Kennedy — the seventh of their children — is the founder of the human-rights organization Speak Truth to Power, which awards what she describes as the "the poor man's Pulitzers" to authors and journalists around the world who stand up to oppression.

Rory Kennedy, their youngest child, is a documentary filmmaker whose movies highlight social issues, such as AIDS and poverty in Appalachia.

There is some talk of another Kennedy running for Senate and vying for a place on the national stage. Political observers in Chicago suggest that Chris Kennedy, president of the Merchandise Mart and the eighth of Bobby and Ethel's children, is about to throw his hat in the ring for the 2010 race for President Obama's old Senate seat. There may no longer be a Kennedy machine to help him get elected, but if Obama presses his own Illinois operatives into service for Kennedy, he could be a contender.