Without the Iranian Revolutions and Iranian Hostage Crisis, is Ted Kennedy's primary challenge against Incumbent President Jimmy Carter successful? How would Ted Kennedy fair against Ronald Reagan in the general election? If Carter were to fight off Kennedy as he did OTL, would he go on to beat Reagan?
Without the Iranian Revolutions and Hostage Crisis, does Ted Kennedy win the 1980 Democratic Primary
- Thread starter dw93
- Start date
I just ask because Carter got a boost in the polls after the hostage crisis broke out and that helped him fight off Kennedy, and I've also read and heard that Carter wasn't very popular with the liberals in the party and that was really what prompted Kennedy to run, so I was wondering if Kennedy had a chance in the event that Iran didn't fall apart.
Well if the Revolution didn't happen the oil prices don't spike so the economy limps along and Carter wins like Obama 2012. But if the hostage crisis doesn't occur but the economy has already crashed Carter remains very unpopular with approval ratings around 28%. Due to kennedy's weakness and his Southern firewall he might pull it off but Carter probably loses. With no hostage crisis Kenedy wins Iowa, New hampshire and Maine, carter sweeps the South, Illinois could go either way and the rest looks like OTL when carter's popularity slumped back down but with more Kennedy momentum so a 2-3% swing to him. Kennedy wins narrowly but loses with a divided party. No revolution, carter wins. No hostage crisis, Kennedy wins.
Chappaquiddick buried Kennedy. he should have simply admitted he had an affair. Everyone knew he was cheating on his wife and his cover story was worse than the adultery. At best it looked like he abandoned a woman to her death and at worst it looked like he straight up murdered her. The people who believed the latter wouldn't have voted for him anyways but the former was common enough to cost him any real chance. If he makes it past the primaries he loses. Too many people believed he got drunk, drove into the bay and was either to drunk to care or simply panicked and left her to drown. Either way it costs him too many votes.
Pretty much my interpretation at the time but not being a US citizen I'm open to alternative views from those who are and either remember the period or have studied the primary source material from a Political Science viewpoint.
What does that do for Kennedy? You go from 'liberal lion of the Senate' to some schmuck that challenged the sitting President from you're own party and then lost it the election. IIRC there are some, whether rightly or wrongly, that still blame Kennedy for helping Reagan win thanks to his challenge of Carter.
Not unless you butterfly away the 1980 economy you won't. Kenndey wasn't that popular outside the Northeast and West Coast. He would lose the entire Southeast, probably most of the Midwest and the Mountain States.
Kennedy's candidacy was, in my opinion, fatally flawed from the beginning. Not only was the cloud of Chappaquiddick hanging over everything, but Kennedy was unable to articulate a reason for running, a sad fact that is literally true; he was asked the question during an interview with CBS' Roger Mudd and could not answer the question. While there was a "rally 'round the flag" effect that benefited Carter due to the Iranian hostage crisis, it is still very difficult to defeat an incumbent President in a primary, even for a Kennedy. Ted Kennedy was a great US Senator (IMO), but he was a lousy presidential candidate. Kennedy did benefit from liberal dissatisfaction with Carter, but in the Democratic party of 1980, that doesn't get one as far as it would today. One might have seen a closer race without Iran, but even with the rotten economy (and it truly was awful then), Kennedy was running as a classic liberal in a year where the New Deal coalition was on the brink of extinction. Moreover, if you look at the states where Carter won, they are basically states he would have won under any circumstances -- Southern and border states and a few industrial states like Ohio and Illinois. Kennedy actually won the bigger states like New York, Pennsylvania and California. Using 1980 delegate math, Kennedy did about as well as one would expect running against a Southern moderate who had overwhelming Southern support. So, with all this in mind, I think Carter would still win. It might be closer than it was, but to change the outcome, you need Ted Kennedy to be a far better candidate than he was.
Exactly. Kennedy's heart was never truly in the campaign, more obligatory than anything else. Look at the interviews and his rudderless campaign. It was only after Carter clinched the nomination that Ted came alive helping to campaign for Jimmy.
Obligated to who? He had no obligation to run against an incumbent president from his own party. He simply screwed up his own campaign.