And when the Democrats need a warrior to fight Republican Supreme Court nominees, Kennedy usually leads the fight, even if he ends up losing, as in the cases of Alito, John Roberts, and William Rehnquist.

'Robert Bork's America'
Conservatives will never forget his slashing oratory attacking Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork.

“Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids,” he declared on the Senate floor, only minutes after President Reagan announced Bork’s nomination on July 1, 1987.

Bork never seemed to recover from that oratorical assault. The Senate rejected him.

Kennedy’s long record of liberal advocacy and his involvement in the 1969 Chappaquiddick car accident that resulted in the death of passenger Mary Jo Kopechne, have made him the villain of conservatives for more than four decades.

He could well have been president 40 years ago.

Video   Pelosi: Kennedy 'is a fighter' May 20: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reacts to Sen. Ted Kennedy's diagnosis. MSNBC

In 1968, after the murder of his older brother Robert, Democratic Party leaders offered the presidential nomination to Kennedy. He would have run against Republican Richard Nixon, the man his brother John had defeated in 1960.

Two days before the 1968 convention, one of the Democratic power brokers, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, called Kennedy and pleaded with him to accept the draft.

Daley feared that Vice President Hubert Humphrey, the presumptive nominee, would lose in November to Nixon (and he did).

Failed bid in 1980
Kennedy said “no” in 1968. He tried in 1980 when he ran against President Jimmy Carter. Yet stirring as was his eloquence on great occasions, Kennedy could not explain in a famous interview with CBS correspondent Roger Mudd why he wanted to be president.

Carter beat him in one primary after another and Kennedy went to the 1980 convention in New York defeated, but defiant.

Kennedy’s speech there was one of the most eloquent in convention history.

“Long after the signs come down, and the crowds stop cheering, and the bands stop playing, may it be said of our campaign that we kept the faith,” he declared. “May it be said of our party in 1980 that we found our faith again.”

“For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end. For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.”

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