A day after his niece Caroline Kennedy endorsed Obama in an article in The New York Times, Senator Edward M Kennedy, the formidable US Senator from Massachusetts and the younger brother of the late John F Kennedy and Robert F Kennedy, on Monday will announce his backing for Obama.

The New York Times reported that Ted Kennedy spurned Bill Clinton's [Images] request that he support Senator Hillary Clinton as the Democratic party's presidential candidate, choosing the junior Senator from Illinois instead.

Caroline Kennedy, John F Kennedy's only surviving child, said Obama reminded her of her father, a comparision that has been heard often enough during the 2008 US presidential election.

Coming on the heels of Obama's surprisingly decisive victory in Saturday's South Carolina Democratic primary, the Kennedys' endorsement may signal a shift of sorts in momentum towards the Obama camp and away from Clinton's, a week ahead of Super Tuesday when 22 American states will elect their party candidates to represent them in this November's presidential election.

Hillary Clinton has a clear edge over Obama on Super Tuesday, February 5, which The Los Angeles Times called 'the biggest day of presidential primary voting in US history.' The huge states of California, where the Latino population is expected to back Clinton, and New York, which she represents in the US Senate, are expected to give her the number of delegates that will make her anointment as the Democratic party's nominee a certainty.

Throughout the race, pundits have pointed to Obama's relative inexperience and a lack of influence with the Democratic party leadership as reasons for dismissing him as a serious candidate.

Hillary Clinton, with husband Bill a lionised figure in the Democratic party and decades of political experience on her side, seemed the most likely candidate to secure endorsements from party bigwigs.

But the announcement from Ted Kennedy, a US Senator for over 40 years and one of the most recognisable names in American politics, gives Obama much-needed credence and a voice within the Democratic party establishment.

This newfound support, when coupled with his message of 'Change', makes Obama, the son of a Kenyan black father and a white American mother, an especially dynamic candidate. He seemingly has a firm grip on the youth and black vote (the latter, once seen as Clinton territory) and can now attempt to make inroads into Hillary's strongest contingents: The over 60, impressed-with-her experience crowd and the Democratic Party faithful, both of whom Kennedy's words may resonate with.

Kennedy is the most prominent living member of America's most famous political dynasty.

His older brother, John F Kennedy, was, of course, elected president in 1960, when he was just 43. After his assassination in 1963, his younger brother Robert F Kennedy took up the presidential challenge in 1968, but was assassinated in a Los Angeles hotel, just after winning the California primary.

Ted Kennedy's campaign to be president never really got off the ground, thanks to popular uneasiness over his role in the Chappaquiddick incident of July 1969.

Image: Ted Kennedy with his niece, Caroline Kennedy. Photograph: John Mottern/Getty Images