Notes on a dropout

Joe Kennedy could never handle a media that built him up and tore him down

by Michael Crowley

At 1:30 last Thursday afternoon, a good half-hour before Joe Kennedy was scheduled to do what almost no one thought still possible, the scene outside the Allston VFW hall was chaotic.

Traffic on narrow Cambridge Street had slowed to a crawl, and pockets of curious onlookers were gathering along the sidewalks to gawk at the six white TV satellite trucks packed into the hall's grungy parking lot. Kennedy Inc. underlings milled about warily as adrenalized reporters jumped out of cars and taxis, and two Kennedy aides argued heatedly with three cameramen who intended to stake out the lot and film Kennedy's arrival. The aides, blocking access to the building's rear entrance, were clearly under orders to prevent this, apparently because Kennedy was nursing a bum ankle he'd sprained playing touch football with Teddy and John-John the previous week. Bad symbolism: the six o'clock shows would be sure to lead with footage of Joe hobbling, and a voice-over declaring Kennedy had "limped away from the race."

But the camera grunts had their orders, too, and they weren't budging. Profanities began to fly between a cameraman clad in jeans and T-shirt, camera on his shoulder and wires spilling down his back, and a burly, gray-suited Kennedy man with a careful coif.

"I don't see why you can't just film him when he's inside," said the aide, his tone growing increasingly patronizing and contemptuous.

"We will," replied the cameraman, his tone growing increasingly exasperated and resentful. "But we want to follow him in when he gets here."

When the aide threatened to call the cameraman's boss, the guy exploded. "Go ahead and call my fucking desk!" he shrieked. "Because my editor assigned me to film him when he comes into the building."

A few minutes later, most of the cameramen had been successfully expelled from the lot and were venting in a circle on the sidewalk. They'd been promised Kennedy wouldn't be slipped past them, but they also knew better than to take these people at their word.

"There's a wide-open door in the back," said one. "We've got it covered."

As griping about the control freaks of the Kennedy machine continued, one TV reporter muttered out loud to no one in particular. "There's a lot of anger," he said, shaking his head slightly. "They're angry at us."

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And so it was, up to the very last moments of Joe Kennedy's aborted campaign for governor: toe-to-toe confrontation between the media and Kennedy's handlers, who knew their man could never dismiss reporters with a quip and a quote the way Bill Weld had done. Kennedy was good at pounding the podium on the House floor, but he rarely handled hard questions well. Even before the scandal downpour, reporters had trouble gaining access to him.

For Kennedy's staff, moving him in public became something akin to transporting nuclear waste, requiring elaborate preparation and painstaking calculation. When Joe was on the ground, his handlers' anxiety was palpable. If Kennedy was ever unaware of a reporter hovering near him at a public event, an aide would hustle over to alert him, so as to avoid -- God forbid -- an unguarded moment.

That fear of a self-destruction was never more evident than in June, at the state Democratic convention in Salem, when the Sheila/Michael tsunami was cresting. It was one of Joe's first public appearances since the scandals had broken, and he was swarmed by a ravenous pack of TV crews as he worked the crowd of delegates. His press secretary, Brian O'Connor, appeared to be in a cold sweat, pale and harrowed like a man riding out a ferocious thunderstorm in a single-engine prop plane.

After Kennedy wrapped up the convention with a speech that included his fascinatingly hollow "apology" for his behavior toward Sheila, and for Michael's behavior toward the Alicia Silverstone next door, Kennedy's aides promised he would emerge for comments with reporters. Instead, he huddled in a small classroom (the convention was held at Salem State College) with his wife, Beth, and a couple of aides while more handlers guarded the door and offered conflicting information about whether and when Kennedy would be available for questions. After several reporters had wandered off, Kennedy slipped outside the convention hall to an obligatory clambake with union supporters. There, he succumbed to a few questions -- but didn't really answer any -- before diving into a van that peeled out like an ambulance.

Given what we know about Kennedy's temper (there was, after all, "a lot of anger"), he actually handled scenes like these with surprising restraint. But his self-control plainly had been slipping away in recent weeks. Trying to reestablish some sense of normalcy, Kennedy began calling press conferences to tout nickel-and-dime legislative proposals. One such appearance was to announce a smartly conceived bill to help mom-and-pop businesses install affordable burglar alarms. But the event was dominated by questions about John-John's baffling George essay.

"Guys, c'mon," Kennedy pleaded, shrugging off one question after another. But a sharp, menacing edge was creeping into his voice, the tone of a long-taunted schoolkid ready to shove back. "Come on, guys." He was reaching his limit.

Part 2

Michael Crowley can be reached at mcrowley[a]phx.com.