Kennedy's exit from Congress leaves a family void

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Kennedy and held seats in Congress and the presidency, and the public's imagination for more than 60 years. That period ends when Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island vacate his seat U.S. House of Representatives next month, leaving the job the City Council in the state of California to hold the only remaining political Camelot.

The son of the late Senator Edward Kennedy, he did not hesitate to walk away from politics. His departure is the first time in 63 years there will be no one working in the office of Kennedy was elected in Washington.

"In my family, and has always been the legacy of public service, and that does not necessarily mean the public service," said Kennedy (43 years) in a recent interview on Capitol Hill with The Associated Press.

Read a long list of Kennedy family members who refused to choose life and politics and activists promoting issues such as environment, human rights and women's issues.

Kennedy plans to continue the tradition of supporting the national effort in support of brain research. Hopes to inject the same speed with which his uncle, the late President John F. Kennedy, inspired during the 1960s with his defiance of the Americans to put a man on the moon.

However, Kennedy out of the country's capital is in turn a bittersweet one of the political families in the United States stronger and more prominent, and the family, which has seen its influence in Washington to fade away in recent years with the younger generations to largely avoid public office.

"It's a milestone," said Allan J. Lichtman, a history professor at American University. "Frankly, it's not as if there's a new generation of the Kennedy family prepared to move in public life dramatically."

Policy was the family business, the lifeblood of the family that has prevailed in many cases with the public phase of her victories, as well as shocks, including personally.

The family name is substantially over the decades. Camelot. New Frontier. Chappaquiddick.

John F. Kennedy arrived a member of the Youth Congress in 1947, and took over the White House later and left the huge character in the history of the country. Robert Kennedy's presidential aspirations and snuffed the shot assassain, but he has inspired generations of activists. He said Edward Kennedy, one of the members of the Senate's most influential in history.

Now it's Bobby Shriver and only stronghold in politics, as a city council member in the suburb of Los Angeles beach in Santa Monica.

Shriver, in a brief telephone interview with the Associated Press, said he got the first city in the policy is due to the legacy of his family, but because He citations, neighbors and responded to the high hedge of their own.

He served as mayor and provided help displaced veterans a priority. It was a long time activist, working with U2 singer Bono to help countries in Africa.

Shriver said the policy is not the only way to bring about change, recalling his mother, the late Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who founded the Special Olympics.

Played the sister of John F. Kennedy a big role to change the look of America's mentally disabled from institutionalized patients to neighbors, friends and athletes.

"Mom, change the world without being elected to office," said Bobby Shriver. "Period. End of story."

Approved Patrick Kennedy may have a legacy of his family's famous most impressive.

"In the whole history, she could drop that made the biggest difference," he said.

Kennedy is the leading voice on mental health issues. Defended the bill that Congress passed a landmark requring insurance companies to treat mental health on an equal footing with physical ailments.

He spoke often and openly about personal conflicts with depression and substance abuse. Kennedy has been treated for drug abuse since the crash of his car outside the Capitol in 2006, and has struggled with alcoholism and drug addiction for much of his life.

Kennedy will highlight the need for the expansion of brain research with a conference in Boston May 50 to mark the anniversary of the challenge of John F. Kennedy's moonshot.

He pointed out that his father received treatment helped prolong his battle with brain cancer.

"My father was given an extra year of life because the science was good," Kennedy said. "Against initial expectations, and he had a much longer time, and that was a meaningful time, at least in our relationship, so that's personal."

After five months of his father's death in 2009, Kennedy announced he would not run for a ninth term.

As he left Congress, and there is speculation about who can be created, if anyone, to revive the heritage of the political family in Washington.

Some Democrats hope Kennedy's brother, Edward Kennedy, Jr. will run for Congress. The MP said that he was thinking in Connecticut politics, but has no immediate plans.

Has been mentioned Vicky Kennedy, the widow of Edward Kennedy, a potential rival in 2012 against Republican Scott Brown, who succeeded her husband.

Rejected the former MP Joe Kennedy in the running for a Senate seat in his uncle in the state of Massachusetts last year, but said it was possible rival Brown.

I failed most of the latest offers Kennedy political. Failed attempt to Kathleen Kennedy Townsend in Maryland in 2002 as Governor. Caroline Kennedy has fallen short in efforts to recruit in New York to fill a seat in the Senate.

Said Darrell West, vice president and director of Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, it has become difficult over the years for members of the Kennedy family to expand the brand outside the liberal Northeast.

"As the country became more conservative," West said, "It was difficult for Kennedy to win elective office."