Massachusetts: Going for the Jugular

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...