An era has ended. The lion is gone.

Teddy Kennedy, the long time senator from Massachusetts passed away bringing to a close a near 50 year run of some member of the Kennedy clan being involved in the echelons of government in this nation.

Teddy was the master negotiator and the quintessential old style politician who believed in relationships and connections.

The Senate will be the less for the loss.

Orrin Hatch, the Republican Senator from Utah was one of his closest Senate compatriots and has said that Senator Kennedy always kept his word once he'd given it.

He was, perhaps, the most powerful Senator of the last several decades who was never majority or minority leader.

Regardless of what your political leaning might be, Ted Kennedy was a Senate powerhouse who never stopped pushing for his brand of social justice. For that, he should be saluted and respected.

From a rocky start with charges of plagiarism at Harvard and the Chappaquiddick episode, Teddy was flawed. But, he overcame those flaws.

He worked tirelessly with President Bush to put together No Child Left Behind. Prescription drugs could not have been a reality without his powerful intervention.

Of course, he maintained a progressive agenda for 47 years in the Senate through ten Presidents, never wavering from his core liberal beliefs.

I have never been much of a Kennedy fan. Having grown up in Vermont in the days when everyone was assumed to be a Republican unless they were post master, Nixon was on my mind in the 1960 election. This was the first election in which I was able to vote.

During the campaign, Nixon came to Burlington when I was at UVM and I went to see him at the rally the party held for him.

Then, during the summer of 1962, I was lucky enough to get a job in President Kennedy's summer intern jobs program in Washington, D.C. and met the President in the rose garden at a reception there for all of us in the program.

It was not the first time that I had seen the President. During the late 50's I was able to look down to see him from the visitor's gallery in the senate when he had been the senator from Massachusetts.

Both he and LBJ were on the floor that day. I don't recall now what the debate was about but for both of them to have been there, it must have been something of importance to the nation. As most know, the senate floor is generally bereft of members unless a vote is in progress or very important matters are being discussed.

Like everyone in the nation, I remember where I was when I heard the news on the radio that the president had been assassinated.

I was driving from my apartment in Brighton to a law school class at Boston College. My first thought on hearing the news was, oh no, LBJ will ruin the country.

Everything in Boston closed down until the funeral was over. Even the bars were closed which in an Irish town is certainly far from the norm.

I was able to drown my sorrows since my college roommate was a bartender at a club in South Boston where we were able to go and get a drink. He and I, along with the owners were the only people there.

It was a great national tragedy and whether you liked the Kennedy's or you didn't, our President had been killed and everyone mourned with their eyes glued to the television tube.

My feeling is that Teddy Kennedy was in many ways greatly responsible for the culture of dependency which gripped the poor of this nation until President Clinton with no help from Senator Kennedy reformed the welfare system.

His speech denouncing Robert Bork in the Senate Judicial Committee during the confirmation hearings on Judge Bork's nomination to the Supreme Court was despicable particularly when he called the man a racist.

On the other hand, his speech at the Democratic Convention in 1980 when he dropped out of the race against President Carter for a second term and was attempting to unite the party behind the Carter candidacy was perhaps the best he ever gave.

Regardless of his faults, Teddy was true to whatever cause he embraced and championed it to the bitter end whether anyone else supported him or not.

Now Massachusetts must find a new Senator.

Unlike most states, a successor to fill Teddy's seat in the senate will be chosen through a special election not by the governor.

Since Teddy helped to get the law changed in 2004, Massachusetts law requires a special election for the seat no sooner than 145 days and no later than 160 days after a vacancy occurs. The law bans an interim appointee.

The law was changed in 2004, when John Kerry received the Democratic nomination for president and Republican Mitt Romney was the state's governor.

Before the change, the governor would have appointed a replacement to serve until the next general election.

If Senator Kerry had been elected, that would have created the opportunity for Governor Romney to install a fellow Republican in office.

Now, the lay of the land has changed and Massachusetts has a Democrat as governor.

Just before he died, Teddy wrote to the governor asking that the law be put back the way it used to be.

He argued that Massachusetts shouldn't be without a senator when such important issues such as health care are being debated.

"It is vital for this Commonwealth to have two voices speaking for the needs of its citizens and two votes in the Senate during the approximately five months between a vacancy and an election," the late senator said in a letter to Governor Patrick.

Even though Massachusetts is dominated by Democrats, a change in the law isn't a sure thing.

Governor Patrick, Senate President Therese Murray and House Speaker De Leo all Democrats, have given no indication that they would support the change.

Any change couldn't happen immediately in any event because the legislature doesn't come back into session until after Labor Day.

There has been speculation that Teddy's wife, Vicki, could assume his Senate seat but family aides have said she is not interested in replacing her husband either temporarily or permanently.

One of Bobby's sons, Joseph P. Kennedy, II has expressed an interest in the seat. It would keep the Kennedy name but one might wonder whether he's the right one.

When young, he was expelled from several private schools after having earned the nickname "Dirty Joe" as a result of his quick temper and bullying.

He regularly got into fights with his younger brothers and male cousins. He gained early notoriety for a 1973 incident in which a jeep he was driving overturned injuring his brother David and paralyzing David's then-girlfriend, Pam Kelley.

He married Sheila Brewster in 1979. The couple divorced in 1991 and Kennedy married Beth Kelly.

His efforts to have the marriage annulled after the couple had had two children led to a major controversy.

His former wife, who was not Catholic, published a book Shattered Faith asserting that she was opposed to the concept of annulment because it meant in Roman Catholic theology that the marriage had never actually existed leaving the children somewhere in limbo.

After the book was published, it was revealed that the annulment was granted on the grounds of mental deficiency.

The annulment was originally granted by the Boston Archdiocese in 1997 and overturned by the Vatican in 2005.

His biggest claim to fame has been his support for Citizens Energy Corporation, the charitable arm of Cesar Chavez of Venezuela. The organization has provided affordable heating oil to low income families in the Northeast since 1979 but since Chavez took over the country, the organization has become an instrument of his extreme left wing propaganda machine.

However, any race to succeed Senator Kennedy will be crowded and fiercely fought.

On the Republican side, would Governor Romney enter the race?

Kennedy - Romney revisited?