About 15,000 showed up to the 176th graduating class at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut today. While most were there to see loved ones matriculate, several thousand sat on a nearby hill to hear the Democratic frontrunner speak. Ted Kennedy’s name was still in the program as the featured commencement speaker, but since the senior Senator from Massachusetts fell ill last week, he needed a “pinch-hitter” as Senator Obama described it today.

An insert in the program noted Obama’s biography and declared this was not a political event. “Campaign related activity, including the display of signs and banners, will not be allowed at commencement,” the paper warned. Obama did not mention Senators Clinton or McCain in his remarks, but Jamaica Kincaid, an author who received an honorary degree threw in her support to Obama when accepting the award and the university’s president talked politics in his remarks.

“In the fall of 2004, your frosh year, we had the sad spectacle of presidential politics promoting a climate of fear in which macho self assertion was framed as an antidote to inflamed insecurities on topics as diverse as terrorism and marriage. That was in 2004. In this spring of 2008, we have heard the word change on countless occasions. But will we see a change? Can we emerge from these dark times?” President Michael Roth said as the fairly Liberal campus applauded.

Donned in a robe and accepting an honorary doctorate of laws, Obama began his own speech. “I’d like to start by passing along a message from Ted: “To all those praying for my return to good health, I offer my heartfelt thanks. And to any who’d rather have a different result, I say, don’t get your hopes up just yet!” So we know that Teddy’s legendary sense of humor is as strong as ever, and I have no doubt that his equally legendary fighting spirit will carry him through this latest challenge. He is our friend, he is our champion, and we hope and pray for his return to good health,” he said.

Obama told the nearly 800 graduates and their families that he peeked at Kennedy’s speech prior to writing his own. “The topic of his speech today was common for a commencement, but one that nobody could discuss with more authority or inspiration than Ted Kennedy. And that is the topic of service to one’s country – a cause that is synonymous with his family’s name and their legacy,” he said.

Obama stuck to Kennedy’s theme, recalling his childhood spent “adrift,” his awakening to “a world beyond myself, and then his days as a community organizer in Chicago. “Each of you will have the chance to make your own discovery in the years to come. And I say “chance” because you won’t have to take it. There’s no community service requirement in the real world; no one forcing you to care. You can take your diploma, walk off this stage, and chase only after the big house and the nice suits and all the other things that our money culture says you should by. You can choose to narrow your concerns and live your life in a way that tries to keep your story separate from America’s. But I hope you don’t,” he said, encouraging them to take the path of service.

“Find an organization that’s fighting poverty, or a candidate who promotes policies you believe in, and find a way to help them. We need you. At a time of war, we need you to work for peace. At a time of inequality, we need you to work for opportunity. At a time of so much cynicism and so much doubt, we need you to make us believe again. That’s your task class of 2008,” Obama encouraged them as the students cheered.

Read the entire speech as prepared for delivery below the jump.

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When Barack Obama left his Eugene, Oregon, hotel this morning, he walked over to a dozen or so people waiting to catch a glimpse of the Democratic frontrunner. As he did, reporters raced over to get his reaction to the news that Ted Kennedy has been hospitalized in Boston. Kennedy endorsed Obama shortly after the South Carolina primary, and has been an active surrogate for the campaign, appearing at numerous rallies alongside the Illinois senator.

Obama told reporters that he intends to phone Kennedy’s wife, Vicki. “We are going to try and find out as quickly as possible what is going on. Obviously my thoughts and prayers are with Teddy. He is one of my favorite people, and so hopefully he is going to be okay,” Obama said before ducking into his waiting SUV.

The candidate then dropped by a Eugene hospital, where he again addressed the press. “I know a lot of you are interested in the situation with Senator Kennedy,” he began. “I have been in contact with the family. Obviously they are in our thoughts and prayers - they, I am sure, will be releasing some sort of statement whent they have a better assessment of what the situation is. You know, as I have said many times before, Ted Kennedy is a giant in American political history; he has done more for the health care of others than just about anybody in history, and so we are going to be rooting for him and I insist on being optimistic about how it’s going to turn out.”

Soon after, Kennedy’s senate office released the following statement which was sent to reporters by the Obama campaign. “It appears that Senator Kennedy experienced a seizure this morning. He is undergoing a battery of tests at Massachusetts General Hospital to determine the cause of the seizure. Senator Kennedy is resting comfortably, and it is unlikely we will know anything more for the next 48 hours,” the statement read.

done

UPDATE: Sen Clinton hit the same notes at her morning rally in Kinston, NC. This video is from that event.

JEFFERSONVILLE, Ind — Faced with a slew of experts and even some political allies who say her plan to suspend the federal gas tax for the summer is anything but a solution to the price problem at the pump, Sen Hilary Clinton took the fight above and beyond her two rivals for the White House — calling on every member of Congress to go on the record to support or oppose a federal gas tax holiday

“Do they stand with the hard pressed Americans who are trying to pay their gas bills at the gas station, or do they once again stand with the oil companies?” she asked. Saying she’ll put the question to them soon in the form of legislation, Clinton said “I want them to tell us, are they with us or against us when it comes to taking on the oil companies?”

As for her two opponents, Clinton attacked them for disagreeing with her plan, which would pay for a suspension of the gas tax with a new excess profits tax on the oil companies. “My opponent Senator Obama says well, that’s not a good idea, that’s just a gimmick. And my other opponent Senator McCain says well yes let’s do that, but let’s not pay for it,” she said.

Lending his support in Jeffersonville was Robert F Kennedy, Jr, a long time Clinton backer and advocate for energy independence who told the crowd that Sen Clinton is tough enough for what she calls the toughest job in the world. “I worked very hard with her when she came into New York state, ran for my father’s senate seat in the state, and I saw what she did during that campaign and election,” he said. “She came in after enduring one of the most savage beatings of any public figure during my lifetime.”

He also joked about the split in the famous Kennedy clan over which Democrat to support this year. “There are some members of my family who’ve decided to do the wrong thing and support Barack Obama,” he said. “Let me tell you why they’re wrong and I’m right - because I know Hillary Clinton better than they know Barack Obama.”

On the campus of Washington, DC’s, American University, Senator Barack Obama was joined on stage with a trio of Kennedy’s: Congressman Patrick Kennedy, Caroline Kennedy, and Senator Ted Kennedy.

Caroline Kennedy spoke for only a few minutes, and explained that Obama “is already inspiring all Americans, young and old, to believe in ourselves, tying that belief to our highest ideals - ideals of hope, justice, opportunity and peace – and urging us to imagine that together we can do great things.” She then introduced her uncle, Senator Ted Kennedy.

The elder Kennedy, who spoke a bit longer than his niece, harkened back to the days when his brother was running for president. “There was another time, when another young candidate was running for President and challenging America to cross a New Frontier. He faced public criticism from the preceding Democratic President, who was widely respected in the party. Harry Truman said we needed ’someone with greater experience’—and added: ‘May I urge you to be patient.’ And John Kennedy replied: ‘The world is changing. The old ways will not do…It is time for a new generation of leadership.’ So it is with Barack Obama. He has lit a spark of hope amid the fierce urgency of now.”

In return, Obama paid the Kennedy family homage at the top of his own speech, and acknowledged that he, born in 1961, was too young to remember the days of Camelot. “Today isn’t just about politics for me. It’s personal. I was too young to remember John Kennedy and I was just a child when Robert Kennedy ran for President. But in the stories I heard growing up, I saw how my grandparents and mother spoke about them, and about that period in our nation’s life – as a time of great hope and achievement. And I think my own sense of what’s possible in this country comes in part from what they said America was like in the days of John and Robert Kennedy.’

It’s this torch, the Kennedy “dream” that Obama hopes to carry on in his own candidacy - “That is the dream we hold in our hearts. That is the kind of leadership we need in this country. And that is the kind of leadership I intend to offer as President. So make no mistake: the choice in this election is not between regions or religions or genders. It’s not about rich versus poor; young versus old; and it is not about black versus white. It’s about the past versus the future.”

Read Caroline and Ted Kennedy’s remarks below the jump.

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Romney compares McCain to Ted Kennedy and John Kerry, then immediately clarifies:

Tuftonboro, NH–

During Romney’s stump at a house party today he compared John McCain to Democratic senators, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry:

” Even Senator McCain who is a good man and I respect him. He’s an American hero. Senator McCain voted twice not to go along with the Bush tax cuts and there were 2 different tax cuts, 2001 and 2003 both.   He explained why he didn’t want tax cuts for the rich.  That sounds like Ted Kennedy and John Kerry.  You want to keep taxes down so the economy can grow, that’s Reagan 101.”

But, at the press availability immediately following the party full of supporters and neighbors, his vacation home is close by, the New Hampshire frontrunner said he wasn’t comparing McCain to the Democratic senators:

“I’m not comparing.   Senator McCain and John Kerry and Ted Kennedy are very different people so let there be no confusion there, but his rhetoric about why he did not vote for the tax cuts was almost identical to that of John Kerry and Ted Kennedy with whom he disagrees on most issues, but on tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 when he was 2 and 3 republicans voted against them,  he took the same rhetoric as John Kerry and Ted Kennedy.  Today he says he didn’t vote for them because they didn’t include spending cuts and that may well be the case, but at the time,  he also said he did not vote for them because they represented a tax cut for the rich. We don’t hear that today … I’m not saying he is the same as the democrats, but the rhetoric on that topic was virtually identical.”

McCain has been gaining on Romney in the New Hampshire polls. Today the former Massachusetts governor acknowledged that because of the polls he  would be pointing out the differences between his record and Senator McCain’s more than the other candidates.