WI: No Chappaquiddick

As we all know, Ted Kennedy's presidential hopes were ruined by the chappaquiddick incident, where a Drunk Ted Kennedy veered off the bridge killing his passenger.

WI He was:

A. Sober or

B. did not take the car?
 
Avalon1,

First, the lead officer in the case has been repeatedly quoted as saying that, in his opinion, Kennedy wasn't in the car when it went off the bridge. When he finished his "tryst" with Kopechne, she drove off alone.

Back to your question, if Chappaquiddick hadn't occurred something else most certainly would have and that something else would have aborted Kennedy's presidential chances. For various reasons, many of them understandable, Kennedy's personal life during the period was a slow motion train wreck and the press was eagerly circling.

People tend to point to Watergate as the point where the press began it's adversarial relationship with national politicians but in reality the shift from "cozy and cosseted insiders" to "crusading outsiders" had been taking place for years. Watergate was just the tipping point, the event that made the general public aware of the "new" press.

This less deferential press would have discovered Kennedy in some compromising situation sooner or later. It was just a matter of time.


Bill
 
Yes- Nixon ordered his Plumbers to "catch him in the sack with one of his babes". Colson's team snapped a picture of Ted dancing with an Italian princess the night before President de Gaulle's funeral, of all things.
 
This less deferential press would have discovered Kennedy in some compromising situation sooner or later. It was just a matter of time.

We must remember Kennedy enjoyed a tremendous public sympathy element after the assassinations of his brothers. Without the stigma of Mary Jo's death, it would have been very hard to tarnish his political stamina. When the New Press attacked him, Teddy would simply move more carefully.
 
Absent Chappaqquick, as well as any other butterfly effects (such as a worse scandal) I see Teddy getting elected in 1976, with even greater disasterous consequences than Jimmy Carter.
 
Absent Chappaqquick, as well as any other butterfly effects (such as a worse scandal) I see Teddy getting elected in 1976, with even greater disasterous consequences than Jimmy Carter.
i don't know about that. Part of Carter's problem was that he wasn't willing to play the political games that get things done in Washington. With Kennedy in Office, he first has all his relationships with the current senate and probably has some favors that he can call in to help pass legislation. I think Kennedy still does poorly as due to economic policies since LBJ the economy was teetering on collapse, just i don't think he does as bad as Carter
 
As much as I respect the late senator, he had issues. Long before the adultery, he was caught cheating in school, which is hard to explain away. Nixon was a crook, but he was finally only definitively demonstrated to the public to be a crook he was by Watergate. Senator Kennedy, despite being a basically decent man, had issues easily attacked--even without Chappaquidick.
 

King Thomas

Banned
Either...

1-he gets caught in another scandal, maybe worse or
2-he gets assassinated as well or
3-he has a good chance of getting elected as President.
 
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