NYT: Victoria boosted Ted Kennedy's 1994 campaign against Romney

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E00EEDF123AF937A1575AC0A962958260&scp=1&sq=Kennedy%27s+wife+giving&st=nyt

"I want you to meet the love of my life -- Victoria Reggie Kennedy!" bellowed the 62-year-old senior Senator from Massachusetts, whose penchant for partying in the decade between his divorce from Joan Bennett Kennedy and his re-marriage two years ago has been lampooned on late night television. Then, standing on a picnic bench, he leaned over and kissed his wife.

The crowd roared. There were approving murmurs about Mrs. Kennedy's youth -- she is 40 -- her dark-haired good looks, her megawatt smile.

Susan Stuart, a beautician, declared: "She's brought him right down to earth. Finally he said, 'This is what it's all about.' I'm a Republican, but I'm going to have to vote for him."

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But behind the television image is a woman who is turning out to be a savvy campaigner herself -- better than her husband, some Republicans say. Tonight, in fact, she was center stage as the host for a major fund-raising event for her husband at the Park Plaza Castle, a banquet hall here, where she was joined by Hillary Rodham Clinton.

This may be her first campaign -- it is his seventh -- but in some ways Vicki Kennedy, who was divorced from her first husband in 1990 and is the mother of two children -- Curran, 11, and Caroline, 9 -- has trained for this role. She is a lawyer who specialized in banking -- she is not now practicing. And she was raised on politics in Crowley, La., as a daughter of a retired judge and a Democratic national committeewoman.

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