OAK BLUFFS, Mass. — President Obama on Wednesday praised the life and legacy of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, calling him “one of the most accomplished Americans ever to serve our democracy.”
“His ideas and ideals are stamped on scores of laws, reflected in millions of lives,” Mr. Obama said. “In seniors who know new dignity, in families who know new opportunity, in children who know education’s promise — and in all who can pursue their dream in an America that is more equal and more just, including myself.”
Meanwhile, other tributes poured in from across the political spectrum and from around the world.
An era of Democratic politics and 30 years separated Mr. Obama and Mr. Kennedy, but they grew exceedingly close during the presidential race last year, when Mr. Kennedy’s endorsement provided a critical lift to Mr. Obama’s candidacy. They last saw each other nearly five months ago, but aides said they spoke occasionally by phone, largely about the president’s challenge in remaking the nation’s health care system.
The president did not mention legislation during a brief televised statement. It was premature, administration officials said, to know if the senator’s death would change the course of a bitter Congressional debate on health care.
“His extraordinary life on this earth has come to an end. His extraordinary work lives on,” Mr. Obama said, speaking from the Blue Heron Farm in the town of Chilmark. “For his family, he was a guardian. For America, he was a defender of a dream.”
Word that Mr. Kennedy had succumbed to brain cancer reached Mr. Obama as he vacationed on Martha’s Vineyard, just across the Nantucket Sound from the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port. An aide woke up the president with the news shortly after 2 a.m. He conveyed his condolences in a telephone call to Mr. Kennedy’s wife, Vicki, at about 2:25 a.m., said Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary.
An American flag, which was lowered to half-staff shortly after sunrise in Oak Bluffs, waved in the breeze against the backdrop of the rippling Atlantic. Residents and tourists on this tiny Massachusetts island gathered around televisions in cafes to watch coverage of the senator’s death.
“His fight has given us the opportunity that was denied us when his brothers John and Robert were taken from us,” Mr. Obama said, “the blessing of time to say thank you and goodbye.”
Funeral arrangements have not been announced, but aides said Mr. Obama would deliver a eulogy at the funeral Mass. It is a bookend to his first appearance with Mr. Kennedy at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, when Mr. Obama was preceded on stage in Boston for his national political debut by Mr. Kennedy in a symbolic showcase of the party’s dean and its new generation.
“I valued his wise counsel in the Senate, where, regardless of the swirl of events, he always had time for a new colleague,” Mr. Obama said earlier Wednesday in a statement. “I cherished his confidence and momentous support in my race for the presidency.”
The decision by Mr. Kennedy, the patriarch of the Democratic Party, to support Mr. Obama’s candidacy served as a critical moment in the long primary fight with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. For weeks, the Clintons had implored Mr. Kennedy to stay neutral in the race, but on Jan. 28, 2008, he said he grew troubled by the tone of the campaign and issued his endorsement before campaigning across the country on Mr. Obama’s behalf.
His decision to back Mr. Obama created a significant rift with former President Bill Clinton, associates of both men have said, which forever changed their relationship. Mr. Kennedy appeared with Mr. Obama at American University in Washington, asking Democrats “to turn the page on the old politics of misrepresentation and distortion.”
“He will be a president who refuses to be trapped in the patterns of the past,” Mr. Kennedy said that day, interrupting his speech more than once to embrace Mr. Obama. “He is a leader who sees the world clearly without being cynical.”
Mr. Obama told friends that appearing with Mr. Kennedy and other members of the family at American University was among his favorite moments of the campaign.
As Mr. Kennedy’s battle with brain cancer wore on in recent months, he would occasionally speak by telephone to Mr. Obama. There was considerable speculation that during Mr. Obama’s vacation to Martha’s Vineyard this week, he would visit Mr. Kennedy and his family, but aides said the senator’s condition was too grave and a presidential visit would be too disruptive.
“For five decades, virtually every major piece of legislation to advance the civil rights, health and economic well being of the American people bore his name and resulted from his efforts,” Mr. Obama said in his statement on Wednesday morning. He added, “The Kennedy family has lost their patriarch, a tower of strength and support through good times and bad.”
Mr. Obama is scheduled to vacation on Martha’s Vineyard through Sunday. Aides said that there were no immediate plans for him to visit the Kennedy family, but his schedule was pending until funeral arrangements for the senator were announced.
Others across the political landscape, both in the U.S. and abroad, echoed the president’s sentiments early Wednesday.
Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada and the Senate majority leader, said: “The Kennedy family and the Senate family have together lost our patriarch... . The liberal lion’s mighty roar may now fall silent, but his dream shall never die.”
But Mr. Kennedy’s death also evoked impassioned expressions of sympathy and respect from across the aisle.
A senior Senate Republican, Orrin Hatch of Utah, said, “I have to say there are very few people in my lifetime that I’ve had more respect, and now reverence, for, than Ted Kennedy.” He called the late lawmaker “an iconic, larger-than-life United States senator whose influence cannot be overstated.”
Former President Jimmy Carter, who won the 1980 Democratic presidential nomination after a bitter contest with Mr. Kennedy, called the senator “a passionate voice for the citizens of Massachusetts and an unwavering advocate for the millions of less fortunate in our country”; another former president, George H.W. Bush, called him “a seminal figure in the United States Senate.” And Nancy Reagan, wife of former President Ronald Reagan, said: “Given our political differences, people are sometimes surprised by how close Ronnie and I have been to the Kennedy family. But Ronnie and Ted could always find common ground, and they had great respect for one another. In recent years, Ted and I found our common ground in stem cell research, and I considered him an ally and a dear friend. I will miss him.”
Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain lauded Mr. Kennedy for his devotion to public service, even in the face of adversity. “Even facing illness and death he never stopped fighting for the causes which were his life’s work,” he said.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of Australia said Mr. Kennedy had “made an extraordinary contribution to American politics, an extraordinary contribution to America’s role in the world.”
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain called Senator Kennedy “a great and good man” who had inspired “admiration, respect and devotion, not just in America but around the world.”
He lauded Mr. Kennedy for his efforts to promote peace in Northern Ireland: “I saw his focus and determination firsthand in Northern Ireland, where his passionate commitment was matched with a practical understanding of what needed to be done to bring about peace and to sustain it. I was delighted he could join us in Belfast the day devolved government was restored. My thoughts and prayers today are with all his family and friends as they reflect on the loss of a great and good man.”
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