Through two years of wearying campaigning, defeats and victories, the cool, disciplined Sen. Barack Obama rarely was overcome by emotion. Once was on the eve of the election, when his grandmother died.
The other time, a close aide recalled, was when Sen. Ted Kennedy endorsed him.
Kennedy's endorsement may have won Obama the nomination. His legacy, health care legislation, has already shaped Obama's presidency, and Obama will deliver a eulogy at Kennedy's funeral Saturday. But it wasn't until the last minute, in late January 2008, that Kennedy decided to take sides at all - throwing himself into a hard-fought primary between two of his friends, Obama and then-Sen. Hillary Clinton.
When he did, it was without reservation. He addressed critics, declaring Obama ready to lead. And he invoked his family's legacy:
"The torch will be passed again to a new generation of Americans. The hope rises again. And the dream lives on," he said, as the future president sat on a tall stool on stage behind him at American University in Washington on Jan. 28, 2008.
"He was a monumental figure in the history of the campaign," David Axelrod, Obama's senior adviser, told POLITICO, saying that the weekend of Kennedy's endorsement "transformed the campaign."
"It was like being shot from a cannon," Axelrod said.
The day of the endorsement was, Obama told a Kennedy adviser at the time, the greatest day of his life, according to Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson's account of the campaign.
Kennedy, whose age never diminished his outsized political standing or his eye for up-and-coming talent, saw Obama dominate the 2004 Democratic National Convention in his hometown, Boston, and he may have seen a little of himself in the young celebrity senator.
"When [Obama] came to the Senate as a new young senator, he was in a certain way a little like Teddy was when he first came to the Senate. That is, that everybody already knew about him or thought they knew about him," longtime Kennedy adviser Bob Shrum told POLITICO. "So I don't think Kennedy was surprised at his eloquence, his intelligence, his grasp of issues. But it was kind of a habit with Teddy [to mentor promising young senators]. He spent time with him and got to know him well."
He also helped recruit Obama to his committee, the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions panel, Shrum said.
Their relationship was not, however, entirely smooth. Even before Obama was elected to the Senate, he chafed at the humility required of a newcomer, and sometimes it showed.
"We've got to call up not just Republicans, but we've got to call up Ted Kennedy and say, 'Ted, you're getting a little old now, and you've been a fighter for us before. I don't know what's happening now,'" Obama told a union audience in 2003 - in a video that appeared on Huffington Post in December 2007 as Kennedy was considering an endorsement. "Ted, get some spine and stand up to the Republicans."
Kennedy, who had encouraged Obama's campaign but hadn't endorsed him, shrugged off the slight after the young senator called to address the comments. Kennedy spoke occasionally to Obama during the campaign to offer advice - who to talk to, what to look for - but no endorsement.
And he watched the campaign for the next month, torn between his old friends, the Clintons, and the promise of Obama.
It was, Kennedy aides said at the time, the Clintons' own allies who gave him the final push. The days surrounding the South Carolina primary Jan. 26 saw the contest become, for the first time, racially charged. Kennedy blamed Clinton's side, and blamed President Bill Clinton himself. The two men spoke and did little to repair the breach.
Another Democratic consultant close to Kennedy's circle suggested that Kennedy's political judgment may have affected his timing as much as the harsh words in South Carolina. Kennedy had intervened at crucial moments in 2000 and 2004 to back his preferred candidates for the Democratic nomination, and he knew the impact he could have in 2008. He timed his announcement for the lead-up to a national primary - Super Tuesday - where Obama was struggling to convince millions of voters who had barely heard of him that he was ready to be president.
"Sen. Kennedy had an acute understanding of the way politics works and a particularly good understanding of the nominating process," said the consultant, Tad Devine. "When Kennedy stepped in the way he did, he essentially credentialed Obama."

Clinton's camp watched the endorsement with dismay.

"It was tremendously important and played a pivotal role in the campaign -- as he has in politics and the Senate for decades," said Clinton's chief strategist, Mark Penn, who had once also polled for Kennedy.

Shrum, though, suggested that Kennedy's revulsion with the Clintons was the lesser part of his choice.

"He watched the campaign unfold, and I know that stuff has been written that it was an anti-Clinton move - it wasn't. He saw Obama as holding up the sense of hope and change, the possibility of a different America, touching the same kind of responsive chords that his brother did," Shrum said.

Obama learned of the coming endorsement on the Thursday before Saturday's South Carolina primary while crossing that state in his campaign's RV, Axelrod said.

Obama took the call alone in one of the vehicle's two sections, then came into the other where his staff gathered to hear the news.

"He said, 'We got Ted Kennedy,'" recalled Axelrod. Obama explained that the endorsement must be kept quiet and done exactly as Kennedy wanted it. But he understood its power.

"This is big," the candidate said.

"The president is not given to being overly buoyant," Axelrod recalled. "But he was plainly happy, not just because of the strategic value but because of who Kennedy was and what it meant."

The Kennedy weekend continued with an op-ed by John F. Kennedy's daughter, Caroline, in the Sunday New York Times. The headline: "A President Like My Father."

The family had decided to go all out, to make explicit a passing of its legacy to an outsider, after decades of searching for an heir inside the clan. On stage at American University that Monday with Caroline and his son, Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.), the senator, too, referred to passing the torch and echoed his famous 1980 Democratic National Convention promise that "the dream shall never die."

Obama told Axelrod after the event: "That was a very humbling experience."

But he wasn't just a symbolic figure. Kennedy engaged actively in the campaign, using his speech to rebut Clinton's central attack on Obama, that he wasn't ready.

"I know that he's ready to be president on Day One," Kennedy said, imploring his audience - in another veiled reference to Clinton's campaign - to "reject the counsels of doubt and calculation."

Then Kennedy traveled for Obama, heading to East L.A. to make his case to a Hispanic crowd, and cutting into Clinton's edge in big states where routs might have ended Obama's campaign.

Kennedy vanished from the trail in May when he was diagnosed with brain cancer, but, understanding his own symbolism and the size of the moment, dragged himself to the convention stage in Denver.

He had spent the previous night, sleepless, in the hospital, in agonizing pain from kidney stones.

"To go give the speech he had to tell them to lower the pain medication," Shrum said. "He was just absolutely determined to do it. I had a 30-second version of the speech prepared. He scoffed at that."

"'I'm not going to come to the Democratic convention to give a 30-second speech,'" Shrum recalled Kennedy saying.

Kennedy delivered the longer version, again invoking his own legacy.

"And this November, the torch will be passed again to a new generation of Americans, so with Barack Obama and for you and for me, our country will be committed to his cause. The work begins anew. The hope rises again. And the dream lives on," he said in Denver.

When Obama was inaugurated on a cold day in January, Kennedy insisted on being there and taking in the ceremony outside the Capitol.

"He was absolutely ebullient, talking about what a great day this was," recalled Axelrod, who talked to Kennedy shortly before the senator suffered a seizure at the luncheon that day. "He was like a proud father."

The burly, passionate youngest brother of a powerful family, and the cool, slim young candidate from nowhere made an odd couple, but Kennedy seemed to impart to Obama the emotion he was sometimes unable to project. When Kennedy fell ill, their relationship was often more symbolic, and emotional, than practical: Obama filled in for Kennedy at a commencement speech soon after his cancer diagnosis, and Kennedy, an aide, said, later asked for an autographed copy of the speech. Earlier this summer when he was at the Vatican, Obama carried a letter to the pope from Kennedy, a Roman Catholic.

Now, Kennedy's death will frame the central struggle of Obama's young presidency, the charge to drive health care legislation through the Senate. The loss of his vote and his deal-making prowess are a profound blow to the bill's prospects, but his allies hope his memory will carry it through.

"It may be that now that his absence casts such a long shadow to make it more possible to get a health bill," said Shrum.

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WASHINGTON – In an era of bitter political division, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's death silenced a singular voice of bipartisanship at a time when colleagues are struggling with angry constituents and each other over an elusive plan to overhaul the nation's health care system.
Some lawmakers said Tuesday the current stalemate is the result of Kennedy's absence for the past few, crucial months. Some hope to rescue the embattled legislation as his legacy.
It's not clear that the post-Kennedy Senate includes anyone with the credibility among ideological opponents, the dealmaking skills or the inside knowledge to strike a quick agreement.
"There is nobody else like him," said Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., who alternated with Kennedy over the years as chairman and ranking minority-party member of the health committee. "If he had been physically up to it and been engaged on this, we probably would have an agreement by now."
"Teddy was the only Democrat who could move their whole base," Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said. "If he finally agreed, the whole base would come along even if they didn't like it."
Kennedy lost the fight he couldn't win Tuesday, to brain cancer at 77. But he had won countless others by embodying an increasingly rare type of bipartisanship — the kind perceived not as a threat to ideology or fundraising prowess, but as a way of getting something done, however imperfect.
"Bipartisanship takes a person that has leadership and personal charm, quite frankly, and a desire to get a result," said former Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi. "He didn't try to destroy you. That's what's happening in Washington now. It's gotten so mean."
Over 47 years in the Senate, Kennedy evolved into an institution himself, equal parts liberal icon and dealmaker who combined those skills to forge agreement on some of the most sweeping and controversial social legislation of his time.
Kennedy worked out an agreement with President George W. Bush on the No Child Left Behind Act. He regularly worked with Hatch, notably on a federally funded program for those with HIV/AIDS, health insurance for lower-income children and tax breaks to encourage the development of medicines for rare diseases.
When he compromised, Kennedy's base may have grumbled but did not question his fidelity to liberal principles. Republicans trusted him to be straight with them in tough negotiations and not make it personal. And no one questioned his knowledge of Senate procedure, rivaling even West Virginia's Robert C. Byrd, who no longer plays a big role in Senate business.
Without Kennedy, the 99-member chamber lacks anyone playing precisely his role doling out the goodwill and procedural expertise necessary to make the Senate wheels spin through controversial legislation. The Democratic caucus falls from an effective supermajority of 60, enough to kill Republican filibusters, to 59, including two independents.
No one is irreplaceable in the Senate, or so a popular saying goes. But John McCain, R-Ariz., called Kennedy just that in a statement Wednesday. McCain, last year the GOP presidential nominee, was even clearer over the weekend.
"He had a way of sitting down with the parties at a table and making the right concessions, which really are the essence of successful negotiations," McCain said on ABC's "This Week."
"It's huge that he's absent," McCain added. If Kennedy had been engaged in the debate past June, when he handed his committee chairmanship duties to Chris Dodd, D-Conn., "I think the health care reform might be in a very different place today."
Democrats widely mourned Kennedy's passing on personal and political grounds and urged their colleagues to adopt Kennedy's big-picture view of the world generally and health care specifically. There was talk Wednesday of honoring Kennedy within the Capitol, possibly by posting his portrait in the Senate Reception Room with the likenesses of other senators hailed for their bipartisan accomplishments.
"My hope is that this will maybe cause people to take a breath, step back and start talking with each other again in more civil tones about what needs to be done, because that's what Teddy would do," said Dodd, Kennedy's close friend who has taken a lead role on health care negotiations and is, himself, battling prostate cancer.
"We all share the same principles. How you get there is complicated, but that's what Senator Kennedy dedicated his life to," Dodd added. "In his memory, I will do everything I can as long as I can stand in the United States Senate to help us achieve that goal."
Vice President Joe Biden, in a tearful salute to his friend, said Kennedy raised the level of discourse and senatorial behavior and in the course of rising from dark chapters of his own life embodied the most selfless human qualities.

"It was never about him ... he never was petty," Biden told reporters, recalling how Kennedy stood by him when the former senator's wife and child were killed in a car accident.

"I just hope we remember how he treated other people and how he made other people look at themselves and look at one another," Biden added. "That will be the truly fundamental, unifying legacy of Teddy Kennedy's life if that happens, and it will for a while at least in the Senate."

WASHINGTON – With hopes growing ever dimmer for a bipartisan accord, White House and Democratic leaders are considering a wide range of strategies for getting a health care bill passed when Congress returns from its summer recess.
Some are blunt. Some are complex and technical. All are problematic.
Insiders say it's impossible to confidently predict which plan, if any, will prevail after lawmakers return the day after Labor Day. Will Democrats simply try to roll over minority Republicans? Will they try such uncertain paths as asking moderate Democrats, or perhaps a retiring Republican, to let a bill reach the Senate floor even if they plan to vote against it?
Possible outcomes, according to congressional and White House officials:
• A bipartisan agreement.
Still the preference of President Barack Obama and congressional leaders, prospects have dimmed this month as top Republicans have sharply criticized key Democratic goals. Most notably, the chief GOP negotiator — Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa — signaled he would not support a bill, even if he liked it, unless most of his fellow Republicans signed on. That seems highly unlikely.
A truly bipartisan bill would draw significant numbers of House and Senate Republicans, and it surely would be among the least-ambitious scenarios under discussion. It might include widely supported measures such as barring insurers from refusing to cover pre-existing medical conditions, and allowing people to carry their insurance from job to job. But it would not include a public insurance option, hefty subsidies to help the poor buy insurance and other priorities of the left.
Political insiders see little hope for a truly bipartisan bill emerging from the current negotiations.
• A 60-Democrats strategy.
This Democrats-only strategy presumably would produce the most robust, far-reaching changes to the health care system. Liberals say that if Republicans won't play ball, there's no point in compromising the agenda Obama campaigned for, including a public insurance option and coverage for nearly all Americans.
But this approach has many hurdles, and insiders consider it a long shot. Senate filibuster rules would force Democrats to persuade each of their 58 members and two independent supporters to vote down the 40 Republicans on issue after issue. Some moderate Democrats would balk on issues they oppose. And two liberal Democrats — Robert Byrd of West Virginia and Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts — are seriously ill and often absent.
Even if the Senate passed a bill with Democratic votes only, conservative House Democrats might band with Republicans to reject it as too expensive.
A Democrats-only approach would fuel Republican accusations of heavy-handed overreaching by Obama and his allies. But it would energize the president's liberal base.
• A handful of Republicans.
Even if the negotiations involving Grassley collapse, it's possible that a tiny number of GOP senators will join nearly all the Democrats in passing a bill that includes most of Obama's priorities. Maine's Republican senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, are mentioned most often.
But they would face enormous pressure not to break ranks and provide the crucial 60th vote to overcome an otherwise solid GOP opposition. And if they did, the resulting bill still would be seen as a Democratic creation, undermining its acceptance by many Americans.
Handicappers give this scenario a less than 50-50 chance.
• Strong-arm tactics.

If they're willing to play true hardball, Senate Democrats still could pass a health care bill without amassing 60 votes on some contentious points.

The "reconciliation" process lets the 100-member Senate pass budget-related items, under tight restrictions, with a simple majority of votes. But items that arguably are unrelated to the budget could be challenged and possibly subjected to the 60-vote threshold.

Democrats could submit one big bill and fight to keep as many provisions as possible from falling victim to a 60-vote requirement. Or they could split the package in two:

One bill, dealing with spending questions, could pass under reconciliation rules with as few as 50 votes. The other bill would require 60 votes, and it would be subject to mischievous amendments. But it might include widely popular provisions such as protecting insurance buyers who have pre-existing conditions.

Senate experts differ on how many of Obama's priorities, such as a public insurance option, would fail under the reconciliation process. But everyone agrees the strategy would severely worsen the already testy relationships between Republican and Democratic senators.

Because it is complex, unpredictable and divisive, reconciliation is unpopular with many Democrats, not to mention Republicans. But Capitol insiders say Democratic leaders will use it before accepting full-blown defeat, and some see it as the likeliest outcome.

• Modified all-Democrats approach.

This approach would require Democratic solidarity at some point, but it could be portrayed as a procedural matter rather than a more highly charged policy question.

The crucial votes would occur after the House and Senate had passed separate bills, sent them to a powerful conference committee and then prepared to give the reconciled (and possibly much-changed) product a final yes-or-no vote in each chamber.

The first key is to get the House and Senate to pass their own bills, even if they differ widely. The Senate version probably would be more constrained than the House version, in order to attract enough GOP support to overcome filibusters.

House-Senate negotiators might make the final package closer to the House's more liberal version. That would anger Senate Republicans, and perhaps some moderate Democrats, who could threaten a filibuster on the last showdown vote.

But Obama and his allies could urge the centrist Democrats, in the name of party loyalty, to reject a filibuster even if they plan to vote against the bill itself. If Byrd or Kennedy could not provide the crucial 60th vote, it might come from a retiring Republican who concludes that a huge issue such as overhauling health care deserves an up-or-down vote.

Such a senator might be George Voinovich of Ohio, said Norm Ornstein, who has written about Congress for years at the American Enterprise Institute.

This multi-pronged scenario would yield something "closer to a third or quarter of a loaf than the full package" that liberals want, Ornstein said. But with the Senate's 40 Republicans able to use the filibuster, and the House's conservative Democrats able to block a bill they consider too costly, that's probably the most Obama can hope for, he said.

• Nothing.

All the above options may fail, and partisan clashes could kill the bid to overhaul health care altogether. Top lawmakers consider this unlikely. Democrats control the House, Senate and White House, and they should be able to produce at least a modest bill that Obama could tout as a victory, with hopes of coming back for more in later years.

Passing no bill at all would severely wound Obama's image, exasperate liberals and drag Congress' reputation for effectiveness lower. The political fallout might be hard to predict, however. The blame for failing to make even modest improvements to U.S. health care might stick to Republican critics of Obama as well as Democrats who used their majorities for naught.

___

EDITOR'S NOTE — Charles Babington covers the White House for The Associated Press.

BEIJING – The global spread of swine flu will endanger more lives as it speeds up in coming months and governments must boost preparations for a swift response, the World Health Organization said Friday.
There will soon be a period of further global spread of the virus, and most countries may see swine flu cases double every three to four days for several months until peak transmission is reached, said WHO's Western Pacific director, Shin Young-soo.
"At a certain point, there will seem to be an explosion in case numbers," Shin told a symposium of health officials and experts in Beijing. "It is certain there will be more cases and more deaths."
WHO has declared the swine flu strain a pandemic, and it has killed almost 1,800 people worldwide through last week. International attention has focused on how the pandemic is progressing in southern hemisphere countries such as Australia, which are experiencing winter and their flu season.
But it is in developing countries where the accelerated spread of swine flu poses the greatest threat as it places underequipped and underfunded health systems under severe strain, Shin said.
Governments must act quickly to educate the public, prepare their health systems to care for severe cases and protect those deemed more vulnerable to prevent unnecessary deaths, he said.
"We only have a short time period to reach the state of preparedness deemed necessary," Shin said. "Communities must be aware before a pandemic strikes as to what they can do to reduce the spread of the virus, and how to obtain early treatment of severe cases."
Pregnant women face a higher risk of complications, and the virus also has more severe effects on people with underlying medical conditions such as asthma, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, autoimmune disorders and diabetes, WHO chief Margaret Chan said in a video address.
WHO earlier estimated that as many as 2 billion people could become infected over the next two years — nearly one-third of the world's population.
Health officials and drug makers, meanwhile, are looking into ways to speed up production of a vaccine before the northern hemisphere enters its flu season in coming months. Estimates for when a vaccine will be available range from September to December.
WHO has stressed that most cases are mild and require no treatment, but the fear is that a rash of new infections could overwhelm hospitals and health authorities, especially in poorer countries.
The last pandemic — the Hong Kong flu of 1968 — killed about 1 million people. Ordinary flu kills about 250,000 to 500,000 people each year.
Swine flu is also continuing to spread during summer in the northern hemisphere. Normally, flu viruses disappear with warm weather, but swine flu is proving to be resilient.