DBWI: President Carter survives RFK nomination challenge in 1980

glenn67

In 1980, Senator Robert F. Kennedy (D-NY) challenged incumbent President Jimmy Carter for the Democratic nomination in 1980. Kennedy would be elected President that year and served from 1981-1989.

Historians have ranked RFK among the top ten best Presidents.

Could there have been any path for Carter to be renominated by the Democrats in 1980? For instance, suppose RFK does not survive the assassination attempt on him. Could his younger brother Ted Kennedy have run against Carter in 1980?

And would an incumbent President Carter as the nominee in 1980 have been reelected?
 

JVM

The only way you get Carter re-elected is if he goes un-challenged and if RFK, EMK, etc. rally around him and threw their support around him. The party divisions made Carter look a lot weaker to the general public than he had to, and while it was worth it since RFK won and was a far more competent and intelligent leader - though he gave Carter credit where it's due in later years - had RFK failed and Carter been nominated, it would've been a far bigger disaster than Carter sailing through the primaries.

I don't know about Ted, he could've gone on a completely different trajectory without RFK around. His leadership on health care issues was important and while he laid low during his brother's term in office, it's been said he worked meticulously behind-the-scenes to pass RFK's health care bill. Of course, RFK became unpopular in the early nineties, so maybe Ted could've kept his Senate seat in 1994 if RFK hadn't served.
 

OnlyAlb

If Ted kept his seat in 94 then William Weld would have never gotten elected senator. That means he wouldn't be the republican vp nominee in 2000.
 
DTanza

DTanza

Banned
Ultimate Paragon said:
If that were the case, then who would John McCain have picked as his running mate?
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This is assuming McCain is the nominee. We don't know how his career would have gone in a world without RFK as President. For all we know it could have been Liz Dole or Jack Kemp.
 

Seleucus

RFK had quite a few skeletons in the closet that could have easily came out. E.g., his wiretapping of MLK, numerous affairs, etc. Having Ted elected to president might have actually turned out better.
 

OnlyAlb

Kaiser K said:
And the Yemeni Intervention certainly did not help President Biden win re-election in 1996.
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Biden was lucky that he beat President Donald Rumsfeld in the first place in 92. Talk about a November surprise indeed. That scandel that came out sure did help Biden.
 
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