Jim Gerahty, commenting on the University of Virginia’s proposed oral history project on Ted Kennedy’s life, says Kennedy’s life story “is definitely worth intense study by historians”:
The story of how the Democratic party could go from the policies of John F. Kennedy — confident in projecting American military force, staunchly hawkish against communism, supporting tax cuts, an attempt to garner support from every corner of the country — to the policies of Ted Kennedy — dovish suspicion of U.S. military force, appeasement to communists and other threats, tax and spend liberalism, and a blue state elitism that writes off large chunks of the South and Midwest — is the story of how the Democrats shrunk from the majority party to the minority party in this country over the last 45 years.
You can trace that trajectory by comparing two speeches: John F. Kennedy’s final undelivered speech (prepared for delivery in Dallas on November 22, 1963 and included in the new edition of William Safire’s "Lend Me Your Ears" as one of the great speeches in history) — and the foreign policy speech that John Kerry gave on May 27, 2004 on the "lessons of the Greatest Generation" — a speech that reversed the meaning of Kennedy’s earlier address.
The Democratic Party — which garnished an estimated 75% of the Jewish vote in the last election — is not the same Democratic Party that first earned their support. In fact, the speech during the 2004 presidential campaign that most closely resembled the greatest speech of John F. Kennedy was the one described here.