Hay esperanza para los Kennedy

Bloomberg nos habla de Joe Kennedy, uno de los nietos de Bobby, que este año se presenta al Congreso por Massachusetts y que promete dar mucho que hablar en los próximos años:

For more than half a century, the Kennedys were a force in U.S. politics. Their dominance began with John F. Kennedy’s 1960 presidential run and lasted until the death of Senator Edward M. Kennedy in 2009.

The family’s return as a major political presence isn’t imminent; it may not be that far off, though. A candidate for a Massachusetts seat in the U.S. House of Representatives is Joseph P. Kennedy III, the grandson of Robert F. Kennedy and a grandnephew of the president and the senator. He’s running in a congressional district now largely represented by Democratic Representative Barney Frank, who’s retiring.

It’s not just the name; veteran politicians and Kennedy- watchers say the 31-year-old is the real deal. He draws comparisons to the young Jack Kennedy, and especially to Ted Kennedy in his first race for the Senate in 1962: Both were a little beyond their 30th birthdays, and it was their first bid for office after serving stints as county prosecutors.

An even more relevant analogy, longtime politicians say, is that Joseph Kennedy is a natural, as were his illustrious great- uncles.

“I have been around politics for a long time and only occasionally you meet someone with special skills and ability and genuine warmth,” says former Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd, a Democrat. “I don’t care what his name is; that’s Joe.”

Despite these credentials, Kennedy doesn’t convey a sense of entitlement. “I’m extremely proud of my family’s service to the country,” he said in an interview in Milford last week. “It creates a curiosity about my candidacy. But then I’ve got to earn it.”

(...) Joseph P. Kennedy III is the first of his generation to run. He graduated from Stanford University with a degree in engineering, spent two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic, graduated from Harvard Law School, while doing pro-bono legal aide in poor Boston neighborhoods, and then worked as a prosecutor in two district attorneys’ offices.

In 2006, with his twin brother, Matt (currently working in the U.S. Commerce Department), he ran his great-uncle’s Senate re-election campaign. That wasn’t heavy lifting; Ted Kennedy won almost 70 percent of the vote.

Joseph Kennedy says that seeking political office was part of an evolution that began at the family dinner table and is driven by the desire to affect change. He’s not coasting or cornering the office. In only a few months, he’s attended 100 events in the district, often working seven days a week. “No one is going to say we didn’t work for it,” he says.

He comes across as, well, Kennedy-esque: trim, with a big smile and thatch of red hair. Heads turn when he walks into a room.

(...) He raised $1.3 million in the first quarter, fueled by celebrity-packed fundraisers hosted by his famous relatives. The Republicans, meanwhile, are focused on retaining the seat of the incumbent senator, Scott Brown, and maybe winning the congressional seat of Democratic Representative John Tierney.

This means that Frank’s district will almost surely be represented in 2013 by a member of the next generation of the state’s first political family.

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