The Hillary campaign gamely keeps working to dilute the power of Ted Kennedy's endorsement of Obama, releasing ads featuring her own Kennedy -- i.e., Bobby Jr...

And here's another ad starring Bobby Jr. along with Cesar Chavez's grandson, who reminds viewers of Bobby Sr.'s role in helping farmworkers. Ted's support for Obama could have potency among Latinos, a constituency that is key to a Hillary victory.

According to Ben Smith, the ads will run in California, Arizona and the northeast.

A poll of Connecticut released yesterday evening by Rasmussen shows that there may well be some bounce for Barack Obama from his victory in South Carolina and the Ted Kennedy endorsement. Obama and Hillary Clinton are now tied at 40% each, with John Edwards way behind at 9%.

Rasmussen did not have a previous poll of the Connecticut primary, but a look at other polls shows that Obama used to have trouble breaking even 30%. Can he leverage the Kennedy endorsement into wins in some New England states where he'd been way behind?

Obama's already up with a spot starring a Kennedy -- Caroline -- and in addition to her spoken testimonial, it features shots of JFK and of one of the more potent images of that generation's grasp for greatness, i.e., the grainy footage of the first walk on the Moon.

In addition to running in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and on national cable, it's also running in Boston. Obama trails Hillary by large margins in Massachusetts, so the Boston placement suggests that perhaps the Obama camp thinks the Kennedys could put the state in play, if it isn't merely an Obama head-fake in the direction of the state.

Separately, the image of Teddy Kennedy is set to appear in a Spanish-language ad in Florida, capitalizing on the Kennedy clan's popularity with Latinos.

Late Update: Obama has that other ad out featuring Kennedy imagery, a Spanish-language spot starring Chicago Congressman Luis Gutierrez. The spot opens conspicuously with a shot of the candidate alongside Ted:

As promised, here are the highlights of the speeches from Teddy Kennedy and Barack Obama today...

I'd missed this the first time, but note Obama's claim that the "torch" JFK referred to was passed to his "youngest brother." Which in turn makes Teddy's endorsement of Obama that much more pregnant with symbolism...

Late Update: One other thing about the video: You can see that Kennedy's shots at the Clintons -- his insistence that "no one" should distort Obama's record of opposition to the war, and his claim that Obama will be ready on "day one" -- are very pronounced, and clearly intended.