Mike Capuano: “I guess, to a certain extent, I do not want to talk about what Joe Moakley has done, because, to me, that is not the…”

“I guess, to a certain extent, I do not want to talk about what Joe Moakley has done, because, to me, that is not the measure of a man. It is not the measure of the reason I like Joe, and I think the reason Joe is so well loved in his own district. It is what he is. I grew up in Massachusetts, and for all of my life, like Joe, I live in my own hometown. Like Joe, I live in my own neighborhood. And I want to tell my colleagues, all of my life, I have heard about Joe Moakley, as I heard about Tip O'Neill, as I heard about Ted Kennedy, as I heard about James Michael Curly, as I heard about John Kennedy. In my world, there were many political giants. But, for me, most of them came before me. And I knew some of them in passing. I knew Mr. O'Neill a little bit. My father knew him better. This is the first time in my life I have had an opportunity to get up close to someone who is a living icon in my world, and it is the first time in my life that I know that all the things I heard about him were not just the typical media fluff that many of us around here worry about. We are all worried about our image. We are all worried about what people say about us. And Joe Moakley could not care less because he is what he is, and what he is is a regular guy. I say that representing a district that almost is a mirror image of Joe's district. We do represent all of those people.…”