Georgia Keohane profiles Massachusetts Senate candidate Alan Khazei:
“I’ve always been a dark horse,” says Alan Khazei, a candidate for Ted Kennedy‘s Senate seat in Massachusetts. A November 23 Rasmussen Reports poll found Khazei trailing two well known political veterans. Yet in the past two months, Khazei has raised over two million dollars, been named the “rightful heir” to Kennedy’s seat by Newsweek, received The Boston Globe‘s endorsement, and enlisted hundreds of young volunteers to knock on doors across the state. For Khazei, this groundswell is both method and message: His is a campaign of civic activism.
Khazei was born to an Iranian immigrant doctor and an Italian American nurse and grew up in Bedford, New Hampshire. Straight out of Harvard Law School, he co-founded City Year, a service organization that inspired Bill Clinton‘s AmeriCorps. Twenty years later, Khazei started Be the Change, a non-profit that asked young people to do exactly that and embraced the immodest goal of building a national movement of citizen activists. Its first major campaign, ServiceNation, brought together presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain at a forum at Columbia University — their only joint appearance outside of debates — and helped make service a campaign priority. Khazei went on to help draft the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act to expand AmeriCorps, and worked to secure its passage in April. Only months later, Kennedy entered the hospital for brain surgery; when he emerged, he wore his red City Year jacket. In a race where succession is front and center, Khazei hopes his own record in public service will qualify him to carry the Kennedy mantle.
