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UPDATE: All political camps pulling for Ted Kennedy

Senator conscious after suffering seizure

John Nichols  —  5/18/2008 7:00 am

Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain — and a lot of Wisconsin politicos — are agreed on one thing.

They are all worried about Ted Kennedy.

While cynicism is always appropriate when dealing with politicians, this concern is genuine.

Anyone who knows anything about the U.S. Senate knows why there is complete unity when it comes to hoping that Ted Kennedy will come through his current medical scare rested and ready to continue serving.

Since 1980, when he surrendered his presidential ambitions, Kennedy has devoted himself to the Senate. Even when Republicans ran the chamber, he was considered the essential player — so much so that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney courted him. Despite all the pokes he took from right-wing interest groups and media, conservative Republicans have known the liberal lion as a man of the Senate who forges the compromises — on judicial appointments, education and labor policy and just about everything else — that end up having staying power.

So everyone in the Senate — Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives — gasped when the word came that Kennedy had suffered a seizure Saturday morning and was hospitalized in Boston. The same went for Wisconsin political circles, where Kennedy has maintained friendships since he was dispatched to the state in 1959 to help run his brother's campaign in the state's 1960 presidential primary.

Some of Kennedy's closest friends and allies from those days, such as former Gov. Pat Lucey, are still around. And, with younger friends of Kennedy, such as U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Middleton, they were tracking reports of the senator's illness — as was just about everyone else on a day when the senator from Massachusetts dominated the news.

The 76-year-old Kennedy, who came to the Senate in 1962, has had his share of hospitalizations and treatments in recent years — including surgery last October to address a partially blocked neck artery that doctors feared put him at risk of a stroke.

Kennedy, however, did not suffer a stroke and "is not in any immediate danger," said Dr. Larry Ronan, the senator's primary care physician, late Saturday.

"He's resting comfortably, and watching the Red Sox game with his family," Ronan said, referring to Boston's doubleheader sweep of the Milwaukee Brewers. "Over the next couple of days, Senator Kennedy will undergo further evaluation to determine the cause of the seizure, and a course of treatment will be determined at that time."The news of Kennedy's illness brought a rare show of unity from the feuding camps of Democratic presidential candidates Obama and Clinton, and Republican McCain.

Said Obama, whose campaign won Kennedy's endorsement and active support this year: "We are going to be rooting for him, and I insist on being optimistic about how it's going to turn out."

Clinton, who was welcomed to the Senate in 2001 by Kennedy and regularly counseled by him, said she was praying for "a quick recovery."

McCain, who has actually worked most closely with Kennedy in the Senate (especially on immigration issues, but also on a host of other matters), released the most detailed and laudatory statement.

"I was very sorry to hear that Senator Kennedy has taken ill, and like millions of Americans, Cindy and I anxiously await word of his condition. Senator Kennedy's role in the U.S. Senate cannot be overstated," said the presumptive Republican nominee. "He is a legendary lawmaker, and I have the highest respect for him. When we have worked together, he has been a skillful, fair and generous partner. I consider it a great privilege to call him my friend. Cindy and I are praying for our friend, his wife, Vicki and the Kennedy family."

His wife, children and niece, Caroline Kennedy, are among those with him at the hospital.

The second longest-serving member of the Senate had surgery in October to repair a nearly complete blockage in a major neck artery. The surgery is done to prevent stroke.

John Nichols  —  5/18/2008 7:00 am