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Democrats are hoping that the memory of Sen. Ted Kennedy will revive the Democratic Party's flagging push for health care reform.
"You've heard of 'win one for the Gipper'? There is going to be an atmosphere of 'win one for Teddy,'" Ralph G. Neas, the CEO of the liberal National Coalition on Health Care, told ABC News.
Democrats are hoping that Kennedy's influence in death may be even stronger than it was when he was alive as they push for President Obama's top domestic priority. Democratic officials hope that invoking Kennedy's passion for the issue will counter slippage in support for health care reform.
Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., a member of the Senate Health, Education and Labor Pensions Committee chaired by Kennedy, has been the panel's point person on health-care reform in Kennedy's absence. Today Dodd said that he hopes Kennedy's death will revive a spirit of bipartisanship.
Democrats were accused of exploiting the death of Senator Edward Kennedy yesterday after immediately trying to use his name to revive President Obama’s flagging attempt to overhaul the US healthcare system.
Within hours of Mr Kennedy’s death on Wednesday leading Democrats were trying to turn it into a rallying point for healthcare reform — something that he had called the “cause of my life” — and suggested that any legislation should carry his name.
Attempts to use the emotion of the moment to revitalise hopes of healthcare legislation quickly ran up against the harsh political realities of Washington and the immediate practical impact that Mr Kennedy was perhaps the only politician on Capitol Hill who could have forged a bipartisan compromise.
His death, and the news that a special election to fill his seat will not take place until January, also means that Mr Obama will be without a 60th majority Senate vote in the critical weeks ahead, when the fate of his healthcare plan will probably be decided.