The political impact of Senator Kennedy’s illness was, I would note, not my first thought.
But there are two impacts on the political world, beyond everyone’s shock and sense of sympathy for the Kennedy family.
1) Obama was set to clinch the majority of the delegates tonight; if he achieves that, it’s now bumped to the inside pages. Kennedy’s tumor is just much, much bigger news.
2) A reader notes that presuming Obama is the nominee, if Kennedy is well enough to address the Democratic convention in Denver in August, it is easy to picture him delivering one of the most heartbreaking addresses in American history. The man who gave one of the most quoted concession speeches in American history — “the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die” — has a chance to rhetorically mark “the passing of the torch” to Obama.
UPDATE: A reader wonders about another possible side effect — greater public concern about the long-term health of senators in their 70s?