Ted Kennedy's career sans Chappaquiddick

So let's say he stays overnight at the party house instead of driving, or takes a cab instead. What happens down the line? No, he's not going to commit harakiri in '72, but '76 or later is possible. I'll await input before giving my own thoughts.
 
After RFK's death, Teddy was not suited for the Presidency. He could win in '76, but would find the stress of the White House and being the patriarch of the Kennedy family unbearable. He falls victim to Carter's woes and in '80 he loses to Reagan in a landslide. Teddy might be able to get UHC done, but somehow I doubt it: the country was majorly distrustful of government post-Watergate. Don't forget that it's very very very hard for any ATL incumbent to get re-elected in '80, and only a few can do it (Reagan and RFK are the ones that pop into mind).
 
I agree with that analysis. It would be a hellish 4 years: Joan would sink deeper into alcoholism and they would soon be divorced in all but name, economy going down the tubes along with Anglo-American relations. I would also argue that because of his lack of self-discipline, a character flaw that was not corrected until he married Vicki, it was never plausible in any ATL period. UHC is definitely possible though. As for the family, I don't even want to think about it. It can't be much worse than OTL though, especially with the trio (Bobby Jr., Bobby Shriver, David). Ted was never cut out to be an executive like his brothers: LBJ had long ago pegged him as a natural senator, his successor in the Senate. Granted that was in the context of being a more congenial and flexible personality than Bobby, but the point stands.
 

JoeMulk

Banned
1980
genusmap.php


Kennedy/Benstien 465
Dole/Baker 73
 
I think Teddy would tell his successor (to quote James Buchanan): "If you are as happy in entering the White House as I shall feel on returning to Hyannis Port, you are a happy man."
 
I didn't ask for ASB scenarios. Unless Reagan is killed or found in bed with a live man or dead woman, he will be the GOP nominee in 1980 and crush Teddy. The economy alone kills him, forget about the Palinesque family soap operas with their endless scandals and bungling of the Special Relationship.
 
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JoeMulk

Banned
I didn't ask for ASB scenarios. Unless Reagan is killed or found in bed with a live man or dead woman, he will be the GOP nominee in 1980 and crush Teddy. The economy alone kills him, forget about the Palinesque family soap operas with their endless scandals and bungling of the Special Relationship.

my bad, this was a fragment of my Ford assasinated timeline....I suppose that combining that with no Chapaquadak could get a Liberal Democrat elected in 80 and either Kennedy or Mondale would be my candidate, but I digress....i'm derailing
 
Kennedy will probably run in 1976, though one should note that Kennedy wasn't the foreign policy liberal he would become by 2009 in 1976. At the beginning of his 1980 campaign to unseat Carter, he was pressing hard for the support of the Cold War hawks within his party and attacked Carter's policies on the foreign front for not being tough enough on the campaign trail.

If Kennedy runs in 1976, the nomination is his. He can unify the liberals, labor, and the New Left, though the latter to a smaller degree. Bentsen is a good running mate for him, and he knocks Ford down in the landslide that Carter should have had in that terrible economic climate.

IMHO, Kennedy will have a much better Presidency than will Carter simply because Kennedy, who used to be Minority Whip (and might have continued on to become Minority Leader ITTL) knows how to work with Congress to get legislation passed. So we get labor law reform in 1978 (which repeals Taft-Hartley 14b, breathing new life into the labor movement, which gets the greenlight to unionize the South), a consumer protection agency around that time, and probably national health insurance and a Humphrey-Hawkins bill that hasn't been gutted either.

Democrats will need a strategy for dealing with stagflation though. Once they get a full employment mandate, they're going to have to figure out how to deal with the inflation in the economy, and knowing Kennedy and the advisers close to him (who were more New Deal than DLC), he's going to go for WWII style price controls.

I can see Kennedy winning re-election in 1980, but it might be close if I'm wrong about his legislative prowess and know-how.
 
14b would be killed in the House by the SoDems and filibustered in the Senate by the GOP. No way in hell are they uncorking that genie, not after they're seeing the mess across the pond. Ditto for Humphrey-Hawkins in its undiluted, or any form.

Against Reagan, with the economy in the toilet? He's a goner, because Reagan effortlessly snatches the WWC and suburban (Kennedys never understood the burbs) voters.
 
So let's say he stays overnight at the party house instead of driving, or takes a cab instead. What happens down the line? No, he's not going to commit harakiri in '72, but '76 or later is possible. I'll await input before giving my own thoughts.


Isn't it pretty much accepted that Ted wasn't in the car when it went off the bridge? The expert opinion of the officer on the scene, a fellow so well regarded that he was elected sheriff for decades after, had Mary Jo driving alone after a patrolman interrupted she and Ted's earlier try at getting jiggy in the back seat.

After she drove off, Ted walked to the motel, checked in, and fell asleep waiting for her to arrive. When woken in the morning, hungover and shocked, he lied out of reflex and was stuck with that lie for the rest of his life.

It's a shame Ted lived the lie to the bitter end. Given his alleged religious beliefs, you'd have thought confession would have been a priority once he became terminal.

Anyway, assuming no Chappaquiddick, Ted is still the political equivalent of a Dead Man Walking thanks to the OTL observation made by one of his enemies that you yourself have repeated a few times in your excellent threads: Wouldn't have happened if Bobby were there.

Without RFK acting as both a brake and moral compass, Ted is going to self-destruct. And, once Watergate gives the press it's new mythology about it's role in society, the press is going to be gunning for Ted daily. As with Spitzer and that moron in South Carolina, getting away with it only leads to running more risks. If Ted dodges the figurative bullet at Chappaquiddick, he's going to do something else and something more over and over until he is caught with the figurative live man/dead woman.

Given Ted's borderline OTL behavior after Chappaquiddick and before his marriage to Vicki, I cannot see him not destroying himself politically in the seven years in this ATL between 1969 and 1976. So, no presidency and maybe even, if his post-Watergate scandal is big enough, bounced from the Senate.
 
He never came clean on what happened, even in True Compass. I would probably agree with that version of events given his intoxication. Not bounced from the Senate though, because he never had a credible opponent until Romney in 1994, who he dealt with the same way Boxer dealt with Fiorina: "teh ev0l outsourcer!" Maybe he did do confession privately, but publicly the excuse was always not wanting to reopen old wounds for the Kopechne family. Mmm hmm. :rolleyes:
 
I didn't ask for ASB scenarios. Unless Reagan is killed or found in bed with a live man or dead woman, he will be the GOP nominee in 1980 and crush Teddy. The economy alone kills him, forget about the Palinesque family soap operas with their endless scandals and bungling of the Special Relationship.

Palinesque? I was not aware that anyone in that famly had done drugs or raped anyone.

Regardless, I agree with the consenus that a Teddy Kennedy Presidency in the 1970s would have combined the worst aspects of Bill Clinton (lots of juicy scandals) and Jimmy Carter (lots of ruinous policy.)
 
He never came clean on what happened, even in True Compass. I would probably agree with that version of events given his intoxication. Not bounced from the Senate though, because he never had a credible opponent until Romney in 1994, who he dealt with the same way Boxer dealt with Fiorina: "teh ev0l outsourcer!" Maybe he did do confession privately, but publicly the excuse was always not wanting to reopen old wounds for the Kopechne family. Mmm hmm. :rolleyes:


What I was suggesting was, absent a Chappaquiddick scandal, "Something Else" was bound to happen and there's a very good chance it is going to damage Ted even more than Chappaquiddick did.

It's all but guaranteed that something else will happen before any possible 1976 run. If he was successfully schtupping staffers in the back seats of cars in 1969, he's going to be engaged in far more risky behavior later on.

Even more importantly, more damage will come from that inevitable scandal because it will occur further away from the assassinations of his brothers, thus muting any latent sympathy, and it will most likely occur after Watergate when the press will be enjoying their new SOP.

The inevitable "Instead of Chappaquiddick" scandal has a good chance of being "worse" because Ted will have been pushing his luck longer and taking more risks. The "IoC" scandal will receive a decidedly more unfriendly level of press coverage too.

Chappaquiddick prevented any chance of Ted reaching the White house and the "IoC" could very well remove him from the Senate.
 
What does Kennedy in '76 do for relations between the U.S. and the U.K., particularly with regard to the Troubles?
 
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