Massachusetts: Going for the Jugular

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This was Eddie McCormack's own bailiwick, and he meant to make the most of it. Plastered with cosmetics for television, he reminded the audience in the South Boston High School auditorium that he had gone to that very school and married a girl from that neighborhood. Then he launched into an attack that for sustained violence was remarkable even in Massachusetts' butt-and-gouge political history.

Standing only a few feet away was McCormack's rival for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senator—Teddy Kennedy, now rigid with shock and suppressed anger.

"What are your qualifications?" cried McCormack, in the opening statement of the TV debate. "You graduated from law school three years ago. You never worked for a living. You have never run or held an elective office. You are running on a slogan—you can do more for Massachusetts. This is the most insulting slogan I have seen in Massachusetts politics because it means vote for this man because he has influence, he has connections, he has relations. This is a slogan that insults the President of the United States." The onslaught continued: "I listened to my opponent the other night, and he said, 'I want to serve because I care.' You didn't care very much, Ted, when you could have voted between 1953 and 1960 on 16 occasions and you only voted three times. Do you really care about civil rights? While I was fighting to eliminate the 'black belts' and the ghettos, you were attending a school that is almost totally segregated, at the University of Virginia.

"I say we need a Senator with a conscience—not with connections. We need a Senator with experience—not arrogance.