Life Without Teddy: Massachusetts Students Face Their First Republican Senator

Though Obama was only a year old when Kennedy won his own special election in 1962, today's Boston students weren't even close to being a twinkle in their parents' eyes yet.

Vivian Ho, a 21-year-old Boston University junior, has lived in Westborough since she was 9 years old and has a die-hard attachment and loyalty to Kennedy usually indicative of lifelong Bay Staters.

"I've lived in Massachusetts for more than half my life, and I'm a Ted Kennedy purist. I love him despite some of the choices and mistakes he may have made," Ho said.

In the days following Kennedy's death, Ho pored over obituaries, features and newscasts focusing on her beloved senator. Tuesday, about an hour before the polls closed, she trudged through the half-melted and dirty snow and cast her vote for Coakley.

"There's no way in hell that a Republican is going to take Ted Kennedy's seat. Right now, though, it's looking like it could be, well, hell," she said Tuesday night.

Politicos, wonks and the public alike all predicted such a landslide win for Coakley that no news organizations invested in exit polls. Then, about a week before the election, analysts announced that the predictions were off, and the race would be much closer than previously thought. In fact, the new stats showed Brown and Coakley in a dead heat.

Some, like BU junior Justine Hill, 20, hadn't thought news like this possible. Hill, a resident of Lakeville, admitted that "leaning further right than left" politically, as she put it, wasn't always easy in the Bay State.

Hill voted for Brown by absentee ballot last week, and said she hoped Brown's would be the 41st vote to hold health care legislation back from final passage in the Senate. Though also a life-long resident of Massachusetts, Hill was no fan of the Kennedy family, calling them "overrated and privileged with that feeling of superiority." She said she thinks Brown could be the GOP's foot in the nation's door, allowing more conservative candidates to slip through the widening crack in the 2012 election.

"Maybe it will open more people up to Republicans in general, and that maybe they're not all bad," Hill said. "Most people in Massachusetts associate them with [former President George W.] Bush and his administration, and now they'll see the good aspects and things they have to offer.

"With Scott Brown, they may see that he can offer them more than the current Democratic legislators."

Constance Ream, 22, spent her childhood summers down the beach from the Kennedy family compound in Hyannis Port on Cape Cod. Though she and her family know members of the Kennedy family personally, she considers herself a true independent, and had no sentimental attachment to Kennedy's seat.

"You never know what the possibilities are when it comes to one senator affecting an entire government's agenda, such as the health care debate today," Ream said. "Maybe Scott Brown will initiate major changes to the health program or maybe he won't. However, as someone fairly moderate in my philosophy I certainly don't think it would hurt the now -verySliberal Senate to have one more thinker from the other side of the tracks to balance things out a little more for everyone."

Now that the votes have been tallied and a winner announced, the next step is facing the news cycle churn, containing a Democratic defeat, the anniversary of Obama's inauguration and yet more health care reform spin. It's sure to be a tough period, Ho pointed out, not only because of the logistics of the special election, but also the symbolic implications.

"Ted Kennedy was the ultimate supporter of the Democratic cause and the health care battle, and to have a Republican take over for him is just a slap in the face," Ho said.