Projo Politics Blog

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy is set to return home to Massachusetts today to recuperate from surgery for a cancerous brain tumor, according to his son Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I.

The senator, who had been at Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina is doing well, "it went better than anyone expected," Kennedy said last night at the Rhode Island Democratic State Convention.

Patrick Kennedy said his father is now looking ahead to working with Sen. Barack Obama, whom the Rhode Island Democratic Party yesterday endorsed unanimously for president.

"I know he's planning for the future," Patrick Kennedy said of his father, "and being chairman of the committee that will consider the health-care legislation when Obama is president."

Sen. Kennedy has worked for universal health care since his election to the senate in 1962. His recent illness, according to Patrick Kennedy, has added urgency to the potential legislation.

He really wants to make sure that he's ready to go," Patrick Kennedy said about his father, "so that he can make health care available to everyone else who needs it."

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