Matters of Fact in Fiction

On August 14, 1980, Senator Edward M. Kennedy accepted the Democratic nomination for the United States presidency. It was an historic moment for many reasons. It was the reintroduction of Camelot. His defeat of incumbent president Jimmy Carter also marked the first time in nearly 100 years that an incumbent president actively sought and lost renomination by their own political party. It had been nearly 125 years since it had happened to a Democrat.

President Carter’s approval rating had reached unprecedented lows in 1979 and 1980. At one point, his numbers were worse than Richard Nixon’s ahead of his resignation. The president’s steadfast devotion to bringing down inflation inspired him to pursue policies that alienated traditional liberal voters. For example, in his 1983 State of the Union address, Carter proposed a long list of cuts to programs like school lunches and Social Security as part of more than $3 billion in proposed spending reductions while advocating for a 3% increase in the Pentagon’s budget.

Other quirks of Carter’s personality prevented him from building relationships in Washington. His opposition to water projects that members of Congress relied upon to bring home the pork to their districts irked many members as did his personal frugality, refusing to serve a full breakfast when Congressional leadership came in for morning meetings.

In 1978, the Democrats threw a midterm convention, where Ted Kennedy powerfully told the party it was time for the Democrats to sail against the wind. In the 1980 primaries, they did. Voters resoundingly turned on the president – across the ideological spectrum. Kennedy even won some of the Southern primaries that no one had expected him to perform well in.

At the Democratic National Convention, a bitter Carter delivered a terse farewell address on the first night, where he touted his administration’s record in the face of its defeat. On the last night of the Convention – 46 years ago today – Kennedy delivered a powerful oration that kicked off a general election campaign against the Republican nominee, Ronald Reagan.

It was a battle of ideological wits, but Kennedy was able to portray Reagan as out of touch with the American people and his own battles with Carter helped voters see him as a change candidate and a break from the last four years. It was a narrow victory, but one that profoundly shaped America’s future.

Though he could not, in his four years, slay that great white whale of universal healthcare coverage for all Americans, he was able to expand Medicare to include children up to 18 years old and pass a number of other measures that reaffirmed the power of government to do good in the eyes of the American electorate. Reagan’s conservatism was not vanquished forever, but it was dealt a significant blow. 

What Really Happened?

In our timeline, Kennedy was well on his way to defeating Carter until the Iranian hostage crisis. While most attribute Kennedy’s loss to his disastrous interview with Roger Mudd (and certainly the interview hurt him), the far more significant factor in his defeat was the issue with Iran. In the immediate aftermath, there was a rally around the flag effect that boosted Carter’s numbers, and Carter’s total devotion to the issue was reassuring to the American public. Eventually, his inability to bring the hostages home cost him greatly.

If you are interested in how a Kennedy presidency may have gone in the Eighties, I encourage you to read my friend’s upcoming timeline on alternatehistory.com: Into the Wind. You can also check out another friend’s effort from a few years back: The Lion’s Dream, which has a unique style of telling the story that I love. In fact, I continue to try and find the particular timeline idea of mine that it best suits so I can mimic it myself.