Editor says, what if Ted Kennedy had run in 1976? muses Eric Lipps. This story was published in the July 2011 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.

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Stan Brin commented on 2011-07-15 17:15:28 ~ Since I knew Jackson, and was a Jackson delegate in 72 (and had a very public argument with Shriver in 76 - and for some reason actually like Jimmy Carter, God Forgive Me), perhaps I should avoid this question entirely. Does this scenario imply that Commandante George McGovern was not nominated in 72? The only way El Jefe George could have lost the nomination in 72, would have been to deprive him of the Rules Committee Chairmanship he obtained in 1968. As Great Helmsman, he manipulated the rules so that only he could win. After 72, his name was dirt. (I also got into a big public argument with Udall, but that's for another time.)

Eric Lipps commented on 2011-07-16 11:42:32 ~ Oh, for pity's sake. "Commandante" George McGovern "El Jefe"? "The Great Helmsman"? Let's put the ad hominem attack aside, shall we, and just look at the facts. McGovern emerged as the leading candidate only after a bruising set of primaries in which Ed Muskie, the presumptive favorite at the start, imploded in New Hampshire and Hubert Humphrey, who had lost to Nixon in '68, fought hard. Too hard, in fact. If anyone tried to rig the rules, it was HHH, who at the convention tried to *retroactively* change the rules so that California's delegates would be divided proportionally rather than winner-take-all, even though he had caampaigned in that state (and lost) under the latter condition. Humphrey's whiny "I lost, so let's change the rules so I get to win" performance did him no credit. Yes, McGovern had played a role in changing party rules after '68, but nobody, NOBODY in politivcs would take seriously that he had somehow rigged them so that "only he could win." I don't see how that would even have been possible. And of course we're ignoring the elephant (or oversized donkey) in the room: that in this timeline there was no Chappaquiddick scandal dogging Ted Kennedy (this post is from my "No Chappaquiddick" thread, in which the accident is narrowly avoided). Do you seriously believe that if Ted Kennedy were in contention he and his forces would have meekly allowed party rules to be rigged against him? In any event, McGovern was no Castro or Mao, as your nicknames for him suggest. Yes, he aligned himself with the student antiwar movement, but his record in the Senate was (and remained until the end) that of a populist liberal more in the tradition of Robert LaFollette (Sr. and Jr.) than Earl Browder, Gus Hall or even Norman Thomas. Do you seriously imagine South Dakota would have elected and re-elected him if he were the Communist ogre you suggest? Remember, he won his final re-election to the Senate in 1974, *after* his humiliating defeat in 1972.

Stan Brin commented on 2011-07-16 21:03:46 ~ Oh please, I was a member of the California delegation of which you speak, but never even bought a ticket to Miami. My seat was already stolen. I never said that McGovern was a communist (although he was a fellow traveler and a useful idiot). What I intended is that McGovern used Bolshevik style political rule-fixing and membership-rigging to sieze control of the Democratic Nominating Convention for himself. The theft of the California delegation is an example. Our campaign exhausted itself trying to follow McGovern's rules -- a patchwork quilt of crazy, formulations that required every candidate to hold local caucuses in every congressional district where attendees must "elect" delegates that were 50 percent female and proportionately black and latino. Everything had to be supervised by lawyers at every stage. McGovern's campaign had thousands of eager volunteers who did the work. Still, we managed to hold our caucuses, and I was among the delegates selected and at the top of the list when the primary results were announced. According to previous rules, California had a winner-all-primary. According to McGovernist rules, delegates must be awarded proportionately. As it turned out, the McGovernists were able to win a plurality of the vote -- about 40 percent. That immediately changed everything. As true Bolsheviks, they changed the rules again -- suddenly reapplying the winner-take-all system in California that they had specifically banned. (About that time, the McGovernists were also publicly plotting to turn the Democratic Party into a members-only club with party cards, and the like. They never mentioned a party secret police, but historically those are never far behind.) I don't have the time to go through everything I experienced in the years 66-72 right now. It might make an interesting mini-series. (You may want to go to calwatchdog.com and see an article on my experience with violent, authoritarian academic liberalism in 66-69.) Suffice it to say that regarding McGovern, he and his supporters were just spitting in the wind. They never thought for a minute they were going to win in November. Their goal was grabbing the nomination and snatching the party from moderate Democrats. All the Republicans had to do was sit back and laugh at us.

Eric Oppen commented on 2011-07-17 02:36:38 ~ So there was no Chappaquiddick, but there was a Watergate scandal? From what I've heard, particularly after Bobby's death, Teddy was increasingly indulging in stupid, self-destructive behavior, and the media couldn't have covered for him forever.

Comment from Alan Abramowitz on Facebook: Well now, if Kennedy ran against Ford he would have certainnly won. And won relection as well. Reagan would then continued to be a joke and faded away. Kennedy would have seen the Iranian hostages possibility and averted that. He might hav...e Whipped Inflation Now (ha). Thats a reference to Ford. There would have beenn no de-regulation and the USA today wouldnt have been in the same economic distress we're in today.Can I travel there??