Lion of the Senate
When Ted Kennedy Rallied the Democrats in a GOP Congress
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- $18.99
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
An insider’s look at the two years when Senator Ted Kennedy held at bay both Newt Gingrich and his Republican majority: “For those who love politics and care about policy—and those looking for an account of how Washington used to work, Lion of the Senate is pure catnip” (USA TODAY).
The November 1994 election swept a new breed of Republicans into control of the United States Congress. Led by Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, the Republicans were determined to enact a radically conservative agenda that would reshape American government. Some wanted to shut down the government. If Gingrich’s “Contract with America” been enacted, they would have shredded the federal safety net, decimated the federal programs, and struck down the regulatory framework that protects health, safety, and the environment. And, were it not for Ted Kennedy, who had defeated Mitt Romney for his Senate seat in 1994, they would have succeeded.
In Lion of the Senate Nick Littlefield and David Nexon describe never-before-disclosed maneuvers of closed-door meetings in which Kennedy galvanized his party, including the two pivotal years, 1995 and 1996, when the Republicans held control of Congress and he fought to preserve the mission of the Democratic Party in the face of the right-wing onslaught. Here is the nitty-gritty of Kennedy’s role, and the details of a fascinating, bare-knuckled, and frequently hilarious fight in the United States Senate.
“Compelling…as a story about how the Senate operates—well, how the Senate used to operate—and a story about perhaps the greatest Senate lawmaker of the second half of the twentieth century, Lion of the Senate succeeds” (The Washington Post) as a political lesson for all time. With an introduction by Doris Kearns Goodwin, this is “a fine rendering that deserves a wide readership” (Kirkus Reviews).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This earnest, respectful account of Sen. Ted Kennedy at the peak of his senatorial powers evokes nostalgia for a bygone era of bipartisan lawmaking. Littlefield and Nexon, longtime staffers for the Massachusetts Democrat, chronicle the time between the Republican electoral surge of 1994, which made way for Newt Gingrich's Contract with America, and Bill Clinton's 1996 re-election. In an instance of critical insight regarding their own party that is rare for this book, they observe that "the Republicans' success was a testament to the failure of Democrats nationally to produce their own agenda." They then show how their former boss rallied his party against the GOP's cost-cutting plans with bids for healthcare reform and an increased minimum wage. The authors tie Kennedy's effectiveness to decades of Senate relationships that allowed him, even in the minority, "to build bipartisan coalitions and enact elements of his own agenda." It's a fair call that Kennedy's mix of leadership styles allowed a minority response to the Contract's disastrous results, which included two government shutdowns. But this analysis could have been made convincingly in a far shorter book, and the lengthy descriptions of Senate rules arcana, committee lineups, and legislative horse-trading will appeal mainly to Kennedy buffs and serious students of political science.
