As the sad news broke this afternoon that liberal lion Ted Kennedy had been diagnosed with a lethal, cancerous brain tumor, I couldn’t help but think back to his 1980 presidential bid. It was the second of three straight nominating contests–after Reagan-Ford in 1976 and before Hart-Mondale in 1984–in which the losing candidate sought to unseat the frontrunner by fighting through the summer, and it was the last to enter the party convention unsettled. In other words, Kennedy-Carter was a far more divisive clash than Clinton-Obama has been, or will likely become. Like Reagan, Kennedy ran against an incumbent president; also like Reagan, he emphasized stark ideological differences with his rival. In contrast, Obama-Clinton, a battle between two challengers with equal claim on the nomination, has centered largely on personality and will probably end with a call for unity shortly after the June 3 primaries in South Dakota and Montana.
After losing in 1980, Kennedy went on to better the lives of millions of Americans by amassing a titanic record of legislation–much of it bipartisan–on education, health care and pensions and immigration. “Ted Kennedy’s courage and resolve are unmatched,” said Hillary Clinton today, “and they have made him one of the greatest legislators in Senate history.” The moral of the story: life goes on. Or Kennedy himself said in his eloquent 1980 concession speech, the peroration of which I’ve posted above, “the dream will never die.”
