S Senator Edward M. Kennedy, gearing up to run for his seventh six-year term, lost one Republican opponent yesterday but may have gained another - an African-American Boston entrepreneur who is reportedly ready to spend $1 million of his own money to unseat Kennedy.
GOP sources said Jack E. Robinson III, a 39- year-old Jamaica Plain resident whose father was the longtime head of the Boston NAACP and a close political associate of US Senator Edward W. Brooke, told Governor Paul Cellucci this week that he will make the run against Kennedy and will spend part of his personal fortune.
Robinson's decision came after he consulted with Michael Sullivan, the Republican district attorney of Plymouth County who after seven months of trying to put together a campaign is going to call it quits.
Robinson, a Harvard Business School graduate who has never run for public office, was out of town yesterday and unavailable for comment.
Will Kaiser, Kennedy's press secretary, said the senator would not comment about Robinson. ''The senator does not speculate on potential canddiates,'' Kaiser said..
But sources close to Kennedy say that a top aide to Cellucci had sent a signal to the senator that the governor would not be helping Robinson in his campaign.
Robinson's decision to run against Kennedy comes at an awkward time for Cellucci.
Kennedy, using his clout in Washington, has worked to bail the governor out of an embarrassing political crisis over the Big Dig and the administration's handling of the massive project's cost overruns.
While publicly, Sullivan in recent weeks has appeared to be planning to run, some Democratic sources in Washington speculated that Cellucci had told Kennedy he would try to ease Sullivan out of the race.
Cellucci and Kennedy have had a close working relationship over the past several years. Still, Cellucci has made it a priority to build a strong state Republican Party, and that requires fielding credible candidates and supporting them.
Robinson, who also earned a degree from Harvard Law School, has told state Republican leaders he will help fund his campaign by using the money he made when he headed the effort to create a cellular phone system for Caribbean island nations. He has also served as a vice president for now-defunct Eastern Airlines.
In addition, Robinson will pick up another $650,000 from the Republican Senatorial Committee in Washington, the maximum it can give to a candidate.
Republican Party sources said Robinson's ideology - fiscally conservative while moderate on social issues and in favor of abortion rights - is a good political profile for a GOP candidate in Massachusetts.
Robinson, whose Ivy League credentials also include an undergraduate degree from Brown University, could prove to be a formidable foe for Kennedy. He has proven debating skills, having been invited several times to appear as a participant on Cable News Network's ''Crossfire,'' a fast paced, hard-hitting debating format that pits liberals against conservatives.
But Kennedy, stung by the tough race millionaire businessman Mitt Romney engaged him in in 1994, has worked hard not to repeat the mistake of being caught off guard. He has built up a massive $3.6 million reelection war chest, the most he has ever had going into an election year.
Meanwhile, Sullivan said his distaste for raising campaign funds and the disruption a Senate race would cause his family had cooled his interest in running what even he had conceded would be a longshot campaign to defeat Kennedy.
He said Robinson had contacted him several weeks ago and indicated his interest in the race. According to Sullivan, Robinson told him he would not challenge him in a primary, but offered to step in if the district attorney wanted to bow out.
''It gave me an opportunity to reflect, and I contacted the party and told them they should take a serious look at Jack Robinson,'' said Sullivan, a former state representative from Abington who was appointed to the DA's post in 1995 by Governor William F. Weld.
