Four years ago this week, Ted Kennedy changed history with the sheer force of his will. Senate Democrats, battling the Bush administration, needed one vote to maintain a key provision of Medicare. Harry Reid, the Democratic leader, then used a lifeline: He called Kennedy, who was in Boston receiving chemotherapy for brain cancer, and pleaded for the liberal giant to return to Washington, D.C., to provide the clinching vote. When Kennedy walked onto the floor on July 9, 2008, senators on both sides erupted in cheers, and some wept. The Medicare bill passed — with nine Republican senators switching their previous votes to be on Kennedy’s side. Among those cheering the loudest that day was Utah Republican Orrin Hatch, Kennedy’s longtime legislative partner, who eulogized him at his memorial.
I was reminded of this moment when talking recently with senators and veteran Capitol Hill correspondents about what has gone wrong in the Senate. A leading theory: There are no giants in the chamber today, no figure with the stature of a Kennedy who could carry votes with his mere presence. There is no longer a revered figure — a Byrd, a Dole, a Moynihan, a Chafee, a Nunn, a John Warner — whose authority could transcend party. Some have died. Some have retired. Others, such as Hatch and John McCain, have been lost to the exigencies of survival in a hyperpartisan political system.
Hatch could have been one of today’s giants. First elected in 1976, he is in line, as the longest-serving Republican, to be Senate president pro tempore if the GOP reclaims the majority in November. He has a long record of legislative success and a moral authority that is beyond question. But to keep his job, he had to fight off a primary challenge from the Tea Party — and to prevail last month, the would-be giant diminished himself, tacking sharply to the right.
When Hatch gave a speech on Obamacare on Monday — four years to the day since he cheered Kennedy’s brief return — he sounded like just another petty partisan. “The difficulty that we will face in undoing ‘Obamacare’ does not mitigate the necessity of repealing this law in its entirety,” he said at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “And should the Republicans take back the Senate, as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, repeal of ‘Obamacare’ will be my first, second and third priority.” Really? A higher priority for the Senate Finance Committee chairman than balancing the budget, reducing the debt and reforming the tax code?
