Kennedy's Hot on the Stump for Obama

When Ted Kennedy endorses you, he doesn't just phone it in: The 75-year-old Massachusetts senator is seriously stumping for Barack Obama—and taking the Southwest by storm. Since backing Obama in a fiery speech on Monday, Kennedy has tried out his Spanish in Santa Fe and sung on an LA radio show, the New York Times reports. And audiences young enough to be his grandchildren are eating it up.

“It’s like when Tony Bennett suddenly became hip again after the kids discovered him,” says a Democratic strategist. "He’s MTV now." While he reserves for his slain brothers John and Robert "a pedestal unto themselves," Kennedy hasn't shied from favorable comparisons of Obama and JFK. Backing Obama, his son Patrick says, is “like an opportunity for him to connect with the touchstone of his brothers’ legacy.” (More Barack Obama stories.)