By Svea Herbst-Bayliss and Donna Smith
HYANNIS PORT, Mass./WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats scrambled on Thursday to find a way to fill quickly the seat of Senator Edward Kennedy to shore up the drive to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system, a top priority shared by President Barack Obama and Kennedy.
Members of America's most storied political dynasty said a final private farewell to the Kennedy patriarch at Mass in their compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, before setting off to take his body to Boston for public tributes on Friday at the John F. Kennedy presidential library and for the funeral on Saturday.
Apart from losing the chief champion in Congress of healthcare reform, Kennedy's death on Tuesday cost his party its essential 60th vote in the Senate, the number that ensures the power to avoid Republican tactical blocking manoeuvres.
Massachusetts law would leave the seat open for five months at which time a special election could be held. But, as he was dying, Kennedy asked state lawmakers to allow Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick to name a temporary replacement.
Following Kennedy's death, Patrick and Senator John Kerry called on state legislators to act quickly on that request.
"It's a particularly timely request at a time when there are such profoundly important proposals pending in the Congress right now," Patrick told reporters.
Without Kennedy's vote and leadership, Democrats face the choice of trying to push through his vision of overhauling the $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare system or finding a compromise that will appeal to Republicans and conservative Democrats.
"It's all about the number 60, the number the Democrats will need if they face a Republican filibuster," said Jeffrey Berry, professor of political science at Tufts University.
FRACTIOUS PUBLIC DEBATE
Kennedy's absence from Capitol Hill as he battled brain cancer may have contributed to the country's fractious public debate in August, during which town-hall meeting participants charged that changes could bankrupt the government.
Republican Senator Orrin Hatch often expressed regret about Kennedy's absence during his illness, saying the Massachusetts senator would have been able to hammer out a bipartisan healthcare deal.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, who has been struggling to reach bipartisan agreement on his panel, said on MSNBC that Kennedy's "spirit and passion" will help spur lawmakers involved in the debate.
Congress must grapple with these public sentiments when it returns in September to writing a healthcare overhaul plan criticized by many for being too costly, for cutting Medicare for the elderly, and for what some see as pushing the U.S. into government-run healthcare.
John Rother of AARP, an influential group representing older Americans, said he sees Democrats rallying to try to push healthcare reform through Congress. "It probably will result in the Democrats being rededicated, but who knows what the impact will be on the public and Republicans," Rother said.
"Organizing for America," the online Obama campaign organisation that is now used to push his agenda, is ramping up its efforts with bus tours, phone drives and door-to-door canvassing in a healthcare campaign called "Let's Get It Done."
But enthusiasm may be waning. In the Dallas Fort Worth area, for example, a zip code search shows only one meeting in a private home, fewer than in previous similar initiatives.
The drive to name an interim senator faces criticism from state Republicans, who note that Democrats in 2004 changed the law to head off a chance for then-Governor Mitt Romney to name a Republican to succeed Kerry, who was running for president.
Kennedy cousins including Caroline Kennedy, Maria Shriver and Joseph Kennedy were due to leave the compound in Hyannis Port in a motorcade of black limousines to accompany the body to Boston for the funeral, where Obama is expected to speak.
"Ted Kennedy worked so hard for all of us in the Senate," said Carolyn Ferrante, 48, who took a break from her Cape Cod vacation to watch the events.
Kennedy is to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery outside Washington near his brothers President John Kennedy and Senator Robert Kennedy.
(Additional reporting by Ed Stoddard in Dallas; writing by Scott Malone in Boston and Claudia Parsons in New York; editing by Vicki Allen and Jackie Frank)
