Jimmy Carter reacts to death of Ted Kennedy

(NECN/ABC) – Former President Jimmy Carter reacted to the news of Senator Ted Kennedy’s death while traveling in Ramallah. “Like all Americans and I think like people around world, we are distressed at the death of a great man. I knew Ted Kennedy very well. On both sides of the fence. In fact in 1980 he ran against me for the Democratic nomination when I was president. And I was lucky enough to prevail. But I think among all the members of the US Senate and the Congress of the United States, he’s been preeminent. He’s been staunch and honest and open, very able to express his views to the American people. And my own hope here is that his deep commitment to comprehensive health plan in our country will be honored by his contemporaries and his peers in the near future. But we’ve already expressed- my wife and I our condolences and our prayers to the family. And I don’t think there’s anybody who serves in the US Congress now, that could possibly be as missed by the American people as much as Ted Kennedy.”