Former Kennedy staff in many high places in Government and more...

[liberal N proud]

Kennedy’s ‘farm system’ now wields power
Ex-staffers feature at highest levels of Obama administration, other fields

WASHINGTON - Behind each of Edward M. Kennedy's legislative victories was a vast coterie of staffers who became Washington legend. They meticulously packed the senator's black briefcase each evening with tabbed, underlined and dog-eared briefing papers. They helped him hone his floor arguments late into the night over dinner and wine at his home. They took turns walking Splash and Sunny, cleaning up the mess that Kennedy's Portuguese water dogs left on the manicured Capitol grounds.

Suite 317, tucked along a marble-floored and white-columned corridor of the Russell Senate Office Building, was not only the liberal lion's den. It also was the finishing school for generations of Kennedy's cubs, hundreds of zealous proteges who came to work for the Massachusetts Democrat. For decades, scores of smart and ambitious Democrats flocked to Kennedy for jobs, and his staff of dozens, which swelled in size as he attained seniority, became unrivaled and widely praised across Capitol Hill.

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Kennedy's alumni now hold power at the highest levels of the Obama administration and across the political, legal, media and health communities. Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer was a chief counsel, as was Melody C. Barnes, President Obama's top domestic policy adviser. White House Counsel Gregory B. Craig and Deputy Secretary of State James B. Steinberg were his foreign policy advisers, and Kenneth Feinberg, the superlawyer tapped by Obama to become compensation czar, is a former chief of staff.

Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, worked as a volunteer on Kennedy's first Senate campaign.

'Unfailingly loyal'
"Teddy's staff was the farm system for the Democratic Party for a generation," Kerry said. "He was a magnet for brilliant, creative, progressive minds and hard-charging, hard-nosed operatives. But it was bigger than that. Teddy's staff had an unparalleled loyalty to him because he was so unfailingly loyal to them."

Some aides never left Kennedy's side, even turning down higher-paying jobs in the private sector. Barbara Souliotis, one of Kennedy's first hires on his 1962 campaign when she was just out of college, is still in his employ at his Boston office, having herself become a Massachusetts political icon of sorts and a revered model for running a senator's state office. Carey Parker, a Rhodes Scholar whom Kennedy recruited in 1969 after a Supreme Court clerkship, became the senator's alter ego, and he remains on payroll as legislative director.


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Professional playground
An incubator of progressive policy — from health care and education to labor and foreign affairs — Kennedy's office was a professional playground for liberal minds.

"What attracted them? He got things done," said Jim Manley, a rare longtime staffer who left to work for another senator. Now the senior communications adviser to Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), Manley added: "People come to Capitol Hill trying to effect change and you always knew that once you worked for Senator Kennedy, you were going to be in the midst of every major battle facing the country."

Kennedy focused on cultivating talent across a range of issues. He regularly recruited a military fellow who was in active duty to advise him. "That was the ethos: getting the most experienced people," said Mary Beth Cahill, a former chief of staff. "If you were going to get into a stem cell battle, it would be wonderful if there would be a person on the staff like David Bowen, who has a stem cell patent."

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More at link...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32591877/ns/politics-washington_post/