The Prettiest Stand-In
“A man never had a prettier stand-in to open his political campaign than Sen. Edward M. Kennedy had Monday.”
And so began Joan’s—actually, Ted’s—1964 campaign.
If Joan had entered the Kennedy family as a shy loner—as she’d described herself in high school—she was now unrecognizable, appearing completely at ease while shaking hands and making the small talk that she’d long ago so desperately avoided. In September 1964, still rattled from her husband’s near-death experience and the loss of her brother-in-law, she stood before a crowd of four hundred and asked for their signatures of support in Ted’s drive for reelection.
“I am no doctor, but I believe that if Ted could be here tonight to see this enthusiastic gathering, it would hasten his recovery by at least a month,” she told the friendly crowd. It was the first of many such stops all across the state. Joan tapped the acting experience she’d had in college—those days when she sipped Coca-Cola next to Eddie Fisher—and quelled the stage fright just as she’d done during all of those piano recitals years earlier. “I’d hit a VFW hall in Springfield and relay Ted’s greeting from his hospital bed, asking his supporters to keep up the good work. Then I’d read his speech,” Joan recalled. “There wasn’t much occasion for piano playing on that campaign. . . . Speaking was easier as I got used to it—after all, no one expected me to really deliver the speech the way Ted would have, though I did my best to give it some spin.”
Not only did Joan campaign for Ted’s Senate seat, but she also took over as a Massachusetts delegate to the Democratic National Convention for her brother-in-law. Bobby, the attorney general, had given up his seat on entering New York’s senatorial race, and Joan was chosen as his replacement. Once again, she stole the headlines. How could she not? Few other delegates lent themselves to descriptions such as “lovely” and “radiant.” Wrote biographer Adam Clymer:
Joan, who had crumpled when Jack died, thrived in this season of adversity. She was needed. Joan went across Massachusetts for Ted. She danced the polka and tried a sentence in Polish in Dorchester, showed home movies of Ted and the children in Lawrence, shook hands and appeared with visitors like [Hubert] Humphrey and [President Lyndon] Johnson. She collected cards pledging to vote for Ted. Thanking one audience for a pile of cards, she said, “The fun part is going back and telling Ted all about it. That’s the best medicine, bringing a pile of signatures to Ted.”
Recuperating slowly, Ted spent his downtime in the hospital reading, contemplating, and gathering essays about his father that he later compiled into a book. Joan told a campaign crowd that he had been “a very busy patient,” that his recovery was “excellent,” and that he remained in “fine spirits.” Joan’s schedule was on pace, though she managed to maneuver her travels so that she’d never leave her children for more than two days at a time. “Still, I was on the road six days a week,” she recalled. It was a grueling pace, one that was rewarded with Ted’s easy victory in November. The whole Kennedy clan knew what Joan had done for Ted. At a news conference outside of Ted’s hospital room after the election, Bobby stood next to his little brother. Both had won their Senate seats; Bobby stood in a suit while Ted lay in pajamas. Ted made a joke about how Bobby’s victory had been narrower than his, to which Bobby shot back, “He’s getting awful fresh since he’s been in bed and his wife won the campaign for him.”