IN 2007, WHEN I was editorial page editor at the Patriot Ledger in Quincy, I wrote an editorial for the paper’s support of the immigration reform bill before Congress. It wasn’t the usual fare for a local newspaper such as ours, but because it was sponsored by then-Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, it had that local “hook” that gave us an opening.

One of the main reasons we editorialized on the bill was the fact it was supported by both Kennedy and then-President George W. Bush, ideological opposites if ever there were. If they could agree on a bill, there had to be merit to it.

A couple days after the editorial ran, I was wandering around the newsroom when a call came to the city desk from someone from Kennedy’s office trying to find me. I had the call transferred to my office, not quite sure what they wanted.

“Mr. Sullivan, can you take a call from Sen. Kennedy?” the woman on the phone asked.

And then that familiar distinctive booming voice came on. “Hi, Jack, Ted Kennedy,” I can still recall him saying. “I just wanted to give a call and thank you for that editorial and say, ‘great, SOMEBODY in the media gets it.'”

That memory came to mind as Gov. Charlie Baker, speaking Monday at the dedication of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate on the UMass Boston campus next to Kennedy Library, spoke of a similar call he received at home on a Friday night as he prepared to have dinner with his family. It was Kennedy calling to thank him for his work on the committee overseeing the development of the Rose Kennedy Greenway in Boston. Baker said he spoke with others on the committee, which crossed political boundaries, and every one of them received a similar call from Kennedy.

“I’m sure everyone here today has a similar story,” Baker said as nearly every head in the crowd bobbed up and down, including those of the few Republicans in attendance.

Speaker after speaker, from a Connecticut state senator who happens to be Kennedy’s oldest son and namesake, to the president of the United States, extolled the late senator’s ability to reach out and across the ideological divide and make connections regardless of views.

“I hate to say this in the city of Tip O’Neill, but politics isn’t local,” said Vice President Joe Biden. “Politics is personal.”

It was the theme of a blustery, snow-spattered day in the dedication of the $79 million institute, featuring an interactive replica of the Senate chamber, the first of its kind in the nation. Sen. John McCain spoke of his many battles with the liberal Kennedy but how the two men could put their arms around each other’s shoulders at the end of the day and find common ground.

While Democrat after Democrat – current Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Edward Markey and former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle – bemoaned the current state of politics and, in particular, the Senate and the loss of comity among the historically collegial body, it was the handful of Republicans who gave testament to the need for someone on the other side to work with.

“I miss my friend,” said McCain, an Arizona Republican. “I miss him a lot.”

It’s those kind of friendships and those kinds of bonds McCain and others say are missing in politics today.

“The place would be a little more productive and a lot more fun,” said McCain. “I miss fighting with him, to be honest. It’s getting harder to find someone to have a good fight with.”

Kennedy and his widow, Victoria Reggie Kennedy, had hoped the institute could reconstruct those times and inspire, if not today’s politicians, tomorrow’s leaders. To that end, Vicki Kennedy included several old nemeses of her late husband on the institute’s board of directors.

“Yes, a Republican from Mississippi,” said board member and former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, to much laughter before finishing, “is proud to be here … We came together many times in a bipartisan way.”

Lott told of his work with Kennedy in 2007 on the immigration bill that ultimately failed on a procedural vote. Lott said he wrote a letter to Kennedy thanking him for his efforts and, in a postscript at the bottom, wrote, “if only the world knew…”

Lott said for many years after, he did not know that Kennedy had framed the letter and it hung on his office wall.

“I didn’t actually want the world to know,” he said, in a nod to Kennedy’s standing as the bane to all things conservative and Republican.

President Obama used the friendship between Kennedy and Sen. Orrin Hatch, a staunch conservative from Utah and a Mormon, to decry the divisions in Congress today and harken back to the days of fierce floor battles followed by dinners at each other’s home. Obama said Hatch had campaigned on a promise to oppose everything Kennedy stood for. But once he came to Washington, he found a lifelong friend. He said the two were able to work together despite their differences on issues such as the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

“What if we carried ourselves more like Ted Kennedy?” Obama asked. “There are Republicans here today for a reason.”

Kennedy, said the speakers, revered the Senate as a historical institution and wanted all senators, including newcomers, to feel they belong in the place. Biden told of Kennedy bringing him around when he was first elected to meet his new colleagues, taking Biden into the Capitol gym’s men’s locker room where all the congressmen were walking around naked. As Kennedy introduced Biden to the legends of the Senate, such as the late Jacob Javits, Biden would avert his eyes out of embarrassment in meeting people he held in high regard but were in their birthday suits.

“I felt guilty I was fully clothed,” he said.

But Biden said becoming a member of the Senate, where 1,963 men and women have served since its inception and sitting at desks where such men as Daniel Webster carved their names, changes a person regardless of their politics or their campaigns. He spoke of how, when he ran, he opposed everything Southern segregationists such as the late Strom Thurmond stood for. But, he said, after serving together for decades, when Thurmond, who had ended up voting for a bill that made it easier for minorities to vote, was on his deathbed, his wife called to ask Biden to deliver the eulogy.

“The Senate changes people,” he said. “People do change here.”