Kennedy Reboot! Addresses Chappaquiddick, Fall 1979

All quotes from:
Camelot's End by Jon Ward

A great book everyone should read if you’re interested in the second most successful primary run against an incumbent president in the modern era. It’s also a solid short biography of both Carter and Kennedy with some interesting lesser known details.

“Kennedy, known for the best staff in the Senate, had not created—or seen to Smith’s creating—a campaign operation worthy of a president,” Adam Clymer wrote.”
“It was never quite clear who was really in charge of the campaign,” Jim Flug, another Kennedy aide, said afterward.

Smith didn’t want to spend a lot of money on polling or on creating TV ads, and didn’t understand modern media. The first round of ads created for Teddy were “probably the worst television ever produced for a presidential candidate in American history,” consultant Joe Napolitan told Hersh.”
There was dissatisfaction with Kennedy’s refusal to tackle the issue of Chappaquiddick head-on in a major speech, despite advice in the fall of 1979 from New York political consultant David Garth to do so. Paul Kirk, too, wanted Kennedy to address it.”
“Even so, Carter’s pollster Pat Caddell walked into the Oval Office in December [1979] with some sobering polling results. He had done a ninety-minute focus group with Iowa voters that showed Carter ahead three-to-one over Kennedy at the beginning of the session. But after asking the voters to imagine Kennedy as president, the group shifted to favoring Teddy. “You won’t believe this,” Caddell said.”

So let’s say Kennedy does address it in 1979 and just like OTL when post dealing with it (badly, probably lying still: sure Mo or Bayh are better choices for the left in many ways but they face their OTL circumstances ITTL) that settles the issue enough to move forward, but since its months earlier than OTL that leaves Kennedy in a better situation. Someone is in charge. Full reboot. Said new campaign manager sends staff to New Hampshire and other states past Iowa, husbands money, does better… and still loses Iowa because of a massive turnout surge they didn’t see coming (marginally less so than OTL). But losing is what you need to get god awful Kennedy late ‘79/early ‘80 in a better headspace as per OTL anyway: crushed in Iowa is not so bad if you didn’t spend 20 million dollars (19.8 technically, out of 20m raised, plus way less family money than RFK) and then narrowly win Maine and NH and on to beat Carter.

(The easy version would be the Shah is denied by Carter and no hostage situation, if you want a simple POD leading to Kennedy beating Carter on the leadership issue EMK planned his campaign on.)

Anyway Kennedy is victorious against Carter. He then moves on to the Reagan battle where he is absolutely the underdog. However even in losing there are possibilities for the future :), and hey maybe there’s enough butterflies for Kennedy to win…
 
Maybe answering Roger Mudd's question asking why he wanted to be president definitively would help (his fumbling the question damaged his campaign run, IMO); to make matters worse, Mudd was a friend of the Kennedys...

Here's the question and Ted Kennedy's response to it:
 
Maybe answering Roger Mudd's question asking why he wanted to be president definitively would help
Camelot’s End said:
“Someone said that when you, Senator Kennedy, talk about performing a great public service—and this is not a Republican talking—but they say that the greatest public service you could perform would be not to run, so that you would save the country this trauma again,” Mudd said, looking intently at Kennedy.”

The whole interview was a massive disaster, we just don’t remember because the end of it was even worse lol. Edit: bundling it together with better campaign does make tons of sense though :).
 
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A possibility out of left field: Claim he was framed. The Deep State thought it was too obvious if they killed a third Kennedy brother so they needed a different way to derail him.

Would be a plausible story to sell in 1979. Watergate, the Pentagon Papers, and the Church hearings on the CIA were in very recent memory.
 
A possibility out of left field: Claim he was framed. The Deep State thought it was too obvious if they killed a third Kennedy brother so they needed a different way to derail him.

Would be a plausible story to sell in 1979. Watergate, the Pentagon Papers, and the Church hearings on the CIA were in very recent memory.

Hardly anyone would believe Kennedy and his credibility both in the Senate and out would be devastated.
 
Hardly anyone would believe Kennedy and his credibility both in the Senate and out would be devastated.

I dunno...trust in the government was at an all time low and events that would have been considered wild-eyed conspiracy theories 15 years earlier had been exposed as real.
 
Another Not the Nine O'clock News sketch that I was unable to find on Youtube...

Don't drive over narrow bridges when you're pissed out of your mind.
 
I dunno...trust in the government was at an all time low and events that would have been considered wild-eyed conspiracy theories 15 years earlier had been exposed as real.

But Kennedy had earlier said in 1969 - after the incident - that he was driving the car and he'd accepted a minor penalty. So not only would he be contradicting himself, but he'd be obviously lying for his own political advantage. Voters wouldn't like that at all - especially after Watergate. If anything that hurts Kennedy instead of helping him.
 
To be honest he would have to do this as soon as possible after it. 1979 is just too late the damage had been done.
 
But Kennedy had earlier said in 1969 - after the incident - that he was driving the car and he'd accepted a minor penalty. So not only would he be contradicting himself, but he'd be obviously lying for his own political advantage. Voters wouldn't like that at all - especially after Watergate. If anything that hurts Kennedy instead of helping him.

Also, how can you effectively govern a country when you've gone on public record as saying that the government of which you are now the head, or at least establishment figures very closely involved with it, murdered your two brothers and tried to kill you?
 
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