On Wednesday night, Senator Edward M. Kennedy stared at an exhausted negotiating team of 20 senators and two Cabinet secretaries and said, “Let’s shoot for 10 o’clock tomorrow morning.”
The negotiators were tantalizingly close to a historic deal to remake the nation’s immigration system. But at several points, nervous senators were ready to give up. Republicans wanted to give temporary visas only to workers taking undersubscribed jobs. Democrats wanted to allow family members of immigrants to come in more quickly.
But Kennedy, the Senate’s consummate dealmaker — still indefatigable at 75 — pushed hard at his fellow Democrats, wavering Republican moderates, and even members of the Bush administration, insisting that the deal-makers work all night Wednesday to beat the deadline imposed by the Senate leadership.
Yesterday, the two Cabinet secretaries — both of whom have been subjects of Kennedy broadsides in the past — lauded the Democrats’ aging lion as the one indispensable player in the negotiating process.
“He’s awesome,” gushed Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff , as he left a news conference announcing the bipartisan agreement. “I’d say he was one of the critical leaders in putting together this deal.”
Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez called it “a real privilege” to work with Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat and liberal stalwart who spends much of his time trying to thwart or undo Bush administration policies.
“It’s obvious we’re in different parties. We don’t always agree,” Gutierrez said. But, he added, Kennedy “is focused. He’s very determined.”
Kennedy’s demand that negotiators have a deal by 10 a.m., Gutierrez said, was the “stimulus” that got the deal done.
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