ix years ago, Senator Edward M. Kennedy rallied late but successfully against an unexpectedly strong Republican challenger. This time around it looks more as if Kennedy didn't care to wait until November to eliminate a weak one.
There is no evidence, so far, that the Kennedy camp put out any of the damaging stories that undermined the flawed candidacy of Republican Jack E. Robinson.
But there is some evidence to suggest that the Kennedy team - working through Edmund Reggie, Kennedy's father-in-law - coordinated efforts with the Democratic State Committee to get Robinson kicked off the GOP primary ballot for lack of 14 valid signatures. Robinson is appealing to the Supreme Judicial Court to overturn last week's decision by the state Ballot Law Commission.
In March, Robinson, a wealthy businessman with no political track record, announced he would challenge Kennedy. Within days Robinson was making all the wrong kind of news. There were allegations about unwanted sexual advances and embarrassing headlines about an arrest for drunken driving and possession of a martial arts weapon.
Reduced to a joke, Robinson was abandoned by his own party. It seemed clear he would have a tough time convincing voters to select ''Jack the Tongue,'' as he was dubbed after a woman accused him of the heinous crime of ''sticking his tongue in my mouth.'' (No Democrat has ever done that, of course.)
The Kennedy camp denied any role in generating Robinson's bad press. This week, a Kennedy spokesman, Will Keyser, said Robinson had enough enemies within the state's Republican ranks to do him in; the Kennedy team didn't have to lift a finger.
That may be true, but it does not explain everything that happened to Ted Kennedy's would-be challenger.
For example, it doesn't explain a series of meetings between Bill McDermott, the lawyer who handled the Robinson signature challenge for the Democratic State Committee, and Edmund Reggie, a retired Louisiana judge and the father of Victoria Reggie Kennedy, who managed presidential campaigns in his home state for John, Robert, and Ted Kennedy.
McDermott and Reggie met several times in Boston while the state committee was developing its case to challenge Robinson's nomination papers. It was more than just friendly breakfast chat, according to Democratic insiders. Reggie - who was part of an inner circle of Kennedy advisers who waged a fierce battle to defeat Republican Mitt Romney in 1994 - acted as the Kennedy campaign's chief liaison in the Robinson affair.
Keyser describes Edmund Reggie as ''a longtime friend and trusted adviser, who was serving as the senator's and the Kennedy camp's eyes and ears.''
He characterized Reggie's meetings with McDermott as ''an opportunity for the Kennedy camp to be educated and advised on the legal aspects of the case, its strengths and weaknesses, when the state party went ahead and filed its challenge.''
You could argue, however, that the meetings between McDermott and Reggie mean something more - that Kennedy's office essentially co-handled the case to dump Robinson with the state party. That argument strips the veneer from the official Kennedy position, that neither the senator nor his staff had anything to do with Robinson's demise.
That would make the Democratic State Committee little more than a front for the Kennedy campaign, which is hardly news. The party, locally and nationally, likes Kennedy tanned, rested, and ready to campaign for Democrats in other states, particularly in a presidential election year.
But the party's interests are not the public's interests, even in a state where Democrats dramatically outnumber Republicans. Opting to giving Ted Kennedy a relaxing summer in Hyannis and a free ride in November is a disservice to voters, no matter how weak the opposition.
As a US senator, Kennedy runs for office once every six years. Even if his reelection is virtually guaranteed, he and his party still owe the voters at least a pro forma debate of the issues.
Kennedy surely couldn't be afraid of a candidate like Robinson. It seems more a matter of deeming him unworthy of the effort. Keyser says Kennedy would have welcomed a challenge from a state legislator or other officeholder.
But it's the voters' role to decide who is worthy of office, isn't it? Why should a candidate, even a longtime incumbent like Ted Kennedy, preselect his opposition?
Kennedy learned a lot from his 1994 election scare, but he didn't learn this: Don't kill off a weak candidate. Let the voters do it for you. That's democracy, with a small ''d.''
Joan Vennochi is a Globe columnist.
