Carter Quits Early

So let's say that Jimmy Carter does an LBJ and decides not to run again in 1980; Ted Kennedy takes his place & gets the nomination. How does he fare against Reagan?

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President Carter announces his decision not to run for a second term, 1980

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Ted Kennedy accepting the Democratic nomination, 1980
 

claybaskit

Gone Fishin'
Ed Muskie or Jerry Brown would of been tougher oppoents for Reagan instead of Kennedy. Ted Kenendy time in the sun is done by 1980.//
 
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If Carter decides not to run, there will be a different slate of candidates— so it won't necessarily pass to Kennedy. In fact, Kennedy might not even run if there's another liberal name who's winning to jump in. At the very least I would imagine Mondale runs, which probably undercuts liberal challengers.
 
Mondale certainly runs. Remember that Ted Kennedy only ran out of opposition to Carter - no Jimmy means no Ted.

Mondale in 1980 vs Reagan would still be a loss, I think, but a less bad one than OTL 1980 (or 1984). If you can avoid the debate, I think the result might even be quite close.
 
Mo Udall.

Oh fuck yeah (okay probably not but let’s run with it). Now let’s be clear: dude had Parkinson’s and was openly diagnosed. On the other hand it’s 1979 and we know that it is a disease aimed at the body not the mind and like not tons else.

Kennedy doesn’t run without Carter. Hugh Carey is lovely on paper and weaker in reality. Askew is a perfect VP and could never translate beyond Governor. Carter might be back. Jerry Brown is forever and ever the wildcard, all the way or nowhere. Bayh is running for Senate, so is McGovern: the Watergate Babies like Hart are going for re-election. Mondale of course, but ouch after Carter. Nah. The Western Jack Morman who brings the idea of FDR, who loves Kennedy and has close ties, Westerner against Westerner. It has to be Udall, in a scenario where Carter fails and Kennedy sensibly doesn’t get in.

So obviously Udall plays FDR and Reagan (who also wants to be FDR) given his age backs Udall to the hilt if asked. Udall sticks with “I shall serve my country in a wheelchair on a battleship as Franklin Delano Roosevelt did with my mind clear and my legs failing, no man or woman stricken by circumstance is less than those of fortune—thousands of veterans have served witness to the fate that will fall me. Here I was thinking winding up with one eye was god’s way of punishment for me.”

Morris K. Udall deploys what we now call dad jokes, his evident good humour, his call for universal healthcare to save people before afflicted like himself (the personal is political…) and perhaps most of all he spared with Ronald Reagan at the debates as a fellow human being instead of some Goldwater sequel. Udall throws Carter “a good man…” under the bus so hard that trucks are dodging the debris six ways to Sunday.

All of this simply means that as the sun dawns on November 4th, 1980, Represenative Mo Udall faces a coin flip of an election…
 
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