Ex-Kennedy Aide Kirk New Democrat Leader

Paul Kirk, a former senior aide to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), was elected on the first ballot today to serve as national Democratic Party chairman.

Kirk, party treasurer for two years, received 203.07 votes to former North Carolina Gov. Terry Sanford’s 150.93. Sanford failed in his bid for solid support in the South, with such states as Mississippi and Kentucky going to Kirk.

“I’m here to tell you that today marks the end of the soul-searching, the end of the identity crisis of the Democratic Party,” Kirk said in his acceptance speech.

He vowed that his victory “marks the day that the Democratic Party . . . goes back to work to reclaim its rightful and legitimate heritage as the party that speaks to the shared dreams of individual Americans.”

Seeks Political Respect

Kirk said the party’s primary target will be “to earn anew the political respect of mainstream America.”

Earlier, Nancy Pelosi, former chairman of the California state party, and Robert Keefe, a Washington political consultant, announced their decisions to pull out of the race at a breakfast for members of the Democratic National Committee. The move was seen as a last-ditch bid to stop Kirk, but it failed to swing enough votes to Sanford.

Kirk, 47, a native of Boston, has been a practicing lawyer in Washington for several years.

The committee closed a three-day meeting by electing a new slate of national officers to try to restore new life and direction into the party, shattered last November by the worst presidential defeat in U.S. history.

Kirk, whose biggest task was trying to distance himself from the mantle of Kennedy, the Massachusetts liberal whom he served for eight years, is an articulate party professional who says one of his first acts will be to create a policy council to come up with fresh ideas for the party.

While insisting that he is a “mainstream progressive” rather than a liberal, Kirk consistently refused to repudiate Kennedy. He directed the senator’s 1980 presidential campaign and serves as his personal lawyer.

To stress his independence, Kirk authored a resolution, adopted by the committee, that forbids the chairman from taking any step that favors any candidate seeking the 1988 presidential nomination.

Today’s decision ends months of vigorous campaigning by nearly a dozen aspirants who sought to succeed Charles Manatt, a Los Angeles lawyer who became chairman four years ago.