The unthinkable is now being thought. Political observers believe that Republican entrepreneur W. Mitt Romney could unseat 32-year Senator and Democratic icon Edward M. Kennedy '54-'56 in the November election.

For liberals, that would be Armageddon. For conservatives, a Romney victory would warrant the kind of raucous celebration that marked the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Kennedy's descent, like his elder brother's rise to the Presidency more than three decades ago, has been meteoric. The senior senator from Massachusetts has long said he wants to serve in the Senate through the year 2000. Just two years ago, it seemed certain that he would.

In 1992, Kennedy had a Democratic President to work with for the first time in 12 years, and his signature issue, health care reform, was at the forefront of the congressional agenda. He was recently married to an intelligent, attractive lawyer, and good feeling towards the senator was running so high that late-night comedian Jay Leno decided to put a moratorium on Ted Kennedy jokes.

But only months into the Clinton administration, the usual presidential honeymoon dramatically ended when the president's economic stimulus package couldn't pass the Democrat-controlled Congress.

Foreign policy debacles, failed promises and the death of the health care reform bill followed, and the approval ratings for the president and key Congressional Democrats, including Kennedy, swooned.

So after Tuesday's primaries, the senator was talking about a campaign that is stranger than fiction but true. "We are in for a real battle," Kennedy said. "We can't afford to be complacent--the stakes are too high."

The Massachusetts senator is only one of several high-profile Democrats, including U.S. Sen. Charles Robb (D-Va.) and House Speaker Thomas Foley (D-Wash.), facing stiff challenges from Republicans this year. This is a national race now, and record amounts of money are likely to be spent.

At times Tuesday night, the 32-year incumbent seemed belligerent, even begging for a fight. "There really will be a World Series," he combatively declared, "and it starts tomorrow."

Negative Ads

The Kennedy campaign is so nervous about Romney that the senator's aides have been forced to do something Kennedy has avoided in six previous campaigns--run a negative television advertisement. The ad attacks Romney's business record.

Romney, while criticizing Kennedy's record on the airwaves, has been particularly careful in public speeches about facing a state icon. The Republican repeatedly emphasizes that he has no deep vendetta against the incumbent; he simply thinks Kennedy's solutions to current social problems are outdated.

"I was 15 when Ted was elected for the first time," Romney said Tuesday night. "At that time the problem we had in schools was kids chewing gum, now it's kids shooting guns."

"I appreciate all of what Ted has done in the past 32 years, but it is time for a change," he added.

Supporters of the 47-year-old self-made millionaire from Belmont also said that today's world is dramatically different from when Kennedy entered the Senate in 1962.

"I have deep respect for Senator Kennedy and his compassion for the disadvantaged in this country, but his solutions simply do not work," said Thomas G. Stemburg '71, chair of the board for office supply giant Staples. Stemburg said that until this year he had been a liberal Democrat for his entire life.