is still among the most liberal members in congress.  He's like a touchstone to remind us all what progressivism really means.  He's someone who really understand what the principles were that FDR gave to this country and our party.

His replacement just won't be the same.  And certainly it shouldn't be Marty Meehan.  

A Kennedy family friend had to be appointed to the Senate vacancy that was created in 1961 when his older brother John became President... Ted was over a year too young at the time to meet the Constitutional requirement of 30 years of age!

Since there was nearly four years left in John F. Kennedy's Senate term (he had been re-elected in 1958), there was an election for the final two years of the term in 1962.  Ted Kennedy, having turned 30 on February 22 of that year (Senator Kennedy was born on the 200th anniversary of George Washington's birth), ran for the final two years of his brother's unexpired term.  He won that election, allowing him to take office immediately afterwards, instead of having to wait for the January start of Congress.  Because of that, Ted Kennedy, rather than Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, is second in Senate seniority to Robert Byrd.