Keeping it in the family

If this New York Daily News report is to be believed, it seems that Senator Ted Kennedy has told friends that he would like to keep his Senate seat inside the Kennedy clan if and when he can no longer occupy it.

Ted Kennedy has made clear to confidants that when his time is up, he wants his Senate seat to stay in the family – with his wife, Vicki.

Multiple sources in Massachusetts with close ties to the liberal lion say his wife of 16 years has long been his choice to continue carrying the family flame in the Senate. Kennedy won the seat in 1962; his brother John held it from 1953 to 1960.

“There’s no question that he’d like Vicki to continue in his seat,” said one Massachusetts Democrat with ties to the Camelot clan who spoke to Kennedy recently, before his health crisis.

“She’s smart, and smart politically.”

Not being a resident of Massechusetts I really don’t have a dog in this fight, but such a concept (in some ways resembling a royal succession all too closely) has never sat well with me. While the people of the state can certainly select who they will, the handing off of a Senate seat to a family member just strikes me as unamerican in some fashion.

I still have full sympathy for the Senator and hope for his full and speedy recovery, but it is at times like this when devotion and attachment can sometimes run roughshod over the normal political process. I would like to see less of this in the future and more of an open chance for the best qualified candidates to step forward and be vetted.