WI: No Chappaquiddick Incident? Does Ted Kennedy get elected President?

[dw93]

What if the Chappaquiddick incident, which involved Senator Ted Kennedy driving his car off of a one lane bridge into a channel before swimming free and leaving his colleague Mary Jo Kopechne in the car, which is where she died? Would he have been elected President and if so, when and would he be a good President?

 

[GeographyDude]

Yes, it was a big deal. It was always kind of in the background, and it wrecked Ted's chances.

Maybe if it had been merely a close call. Ted decides he has to stop all this shit of drinking and sneaking around. But he's not going to become Mr. Serious. He's going to find other ways of busting loose which are more constructive.

Maybe Ted is ahead of the curve regarding the '70s fitness craze. Maybe he and Joan decide to go their separate ways mid-'70s. They respect each other and like each just fine, but simply are interested in different things.

And so, by the time Ted makes a serious run at the presidency in '84 or '88, his divorce and remarriage is old news. And America had already had their first divorced president. And if I remember correctly, he was on the conservative side of the spectrum and his name was Ronnie Reagan (!). Yes, I think that was the case.

 

[TinyTartar]

Yes, it was a big deal. It was always kind of in the background, and it wrecked Ted's chances.

Maybe if it had been merely a close call. Ted decides he has to stop all this shit of drinking and sneaking around. But he's not going to become Mr. Serious. He's going to find other ways of busting loose which are more constructive.

Maybe Ted is ahead of the curve regarding the '70s fitness craze. Maybe he and Joan decide to go their separate ways mid-'70s. They respect each other and like each just fine, but simply are interested in different things.

And so, by the time Ted makes a serious run at the presidency in '84 or '88, his divorce and remarriage is old news. And America had already had their first divorced president. And if I remember correctly, he was on the conservative side of the spectrum and his name was Ronnie Reagan (!). Yes, I think that was the case.

Divorce would not have been an issue in the 70s either; divorce was only an issue when the reasons for it were public, embarrassing, and current. Its why Nelson Rockefeller could not get the nomination in '64, as it was not a case of mutual separation but rather him being the asshole in the situation and he was even condemned by members of his own inter GOP faction.

Ted would not suffer if his divorce was done low key like that. He would suffer if it happened in the middle of a campaign with rumors of his infidelity or a love child or something like that abound.

 

[CCK]

Ted Kennedy's best shot at winning the presidency was in 1976. The reasons he didn't run that year was because of his personal family problems (Joan Kennedy's alcoholism and drunk driving arrest in 1974) and because of the media's returned interest in Chappaquiddick. Also his lack of real desire to be president might have also played a role in him sitting out in 76. But even with all that Kennedy still led the Democratic field for the 1976 race in a Harris poll conducted in April of 1975.

If their is no Chappaquiddick and Mari Jo Kopechne lives, despite his family problems Kennedy might run in 1976. Joan stood by him and campaigned for him in OTL in 1980. I think she would have done the same in TTL in 1976.

He could have gotten many of the uncommitted votes in the Iowa caucus and beaten the unknown Jimmy Carter in Iowa or came in a close second to Carter. The next three primaries were in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Vermont. I certainly think EMK would have won those state's primaries handily. After Kennedy wins the Wisconsin primary on April 6th, I see Carter dropping out of the race unable to raise money or gain any real traction. But he would have came in second to Kennedy in many of the primaries possibly even winning the Florida and North Carolina primaries before dropping out. Kennedy would have had more than enough delegates to win the nomination months before the convention, while Ford and Reagan would have been battling it out all the way to the Republican Convention.

Kennedy's first choices to be his running mate would have been fellow senators Birch Bayh, John Culver, and Walter Mondale. But his senior campaign adviser Ted Sorensen, campaign manager/brother-in-law Stephen Smith and DNC Chairman Robert Strauss would have convinced him to pick Carter to be his running mate. Carter would have balanced the ticket with Carter bring a southerner, a protestant, a WWII vet, working class background, a former governor, and a moderate. None of which was Kennedy.

I think Kennedy would have beaten Ford in the general election by a comfortable margin.


Gerald Ford/Bob Dole - 184 electoral votes
Ted Kennedy/Jimmy Carter - 354 electoral votes

EDIT: I'll try to finish this timeline and talk about a EMK presidency starting in 1977 sometime later this week.

 

[Glass Onion]

Kennedy's problem as far as the Presidency is concerned is that while he's the obvious Prince Across the Water for the Democratic Party through 1980-he has a narrow time frame in which he can be elected President in a scenario resembling historical reality.

He won't run in 1976 because of health issues in his family which are outside of his control.

In 1980 the reason why Carter beat Kennedy was that a series of foreign policy crises-ironically the Iran Hostage crisis was among them-wrecked Kennedy's chance of unseating Carter despite Kennedy's considerable level of institutional support across the Democratic Party at the time.

It's an open question if Kennedy would have run in any but the historical circumstances of 1980. I suppose the internal party pressure for him to run could have propelled his campaign other circumstances-but I'm not sure he would run without the Carter administration to run against.

I don't think Kennedy ousting Carter is impossible-but you'd have to make 1980 a totally different year. You'd need to avoid the invasion of Afghanistan and the Iranian Revolution or at least the Hostage crisis.

Even then-Kennedy struggled in Iowa because he ran as a vague incumbent rather than a challenger with an actual message. His campaign improved as the race went on-but those early losses cost him whatever chance he had once had to win the nomination.

Without the foreign policy problem Kennedy probably wins a lot more delegates than he did historically. If you combine no Chappaquiddick with a calmer 1980 on the foreign policy front Jimmy Carter might be in real trouble.

Chappaquiddick is just one of the reasons why Kennedy was never elected President. The largest one in my view is circumstantial.

Under no circumstances was he ever going to run in 1972. He couldn't run in 1976. By 1980 there's a Democratic incumbent who he could theoretically unseat-but the early portion of the primary season coincides with a series of crises that induce a rally around the flag effect in favor of the administration-which increased the problem of incumbency.

After 1980 that's the end of Kennedy's Presidential ambition.

Did Chappaquiddick make Kennedy's campaign in 1980 harder? Of course he loss support because of what happened. But even had that incident never took place-the invasion of Afghanistan and the Iranian Revolution would doom his campaign if everything else occurred as per historical reality.

Then the question is why did Kennedy run in 1980? Was he only running against Jimmy Carter because of the fact that Carter was a Democratic President-or would the actions of a Ford administration have equally compelled him to run?

If Ford had won in 1976 Kennedy would have been a leading Democrat to an even greater extent than he had been in 1976. There would be tremendous pressure on him to run-but the chance of him accepting that pressure might be surprisingly low.

In the end-Chappaquiddick is a big reason why Kennedy was never elected President-but to say that the event was the determining factor overstates the issue. The circumstances were never right for a successful Edward Kennedy campaign-with or without Chappaquiddick.