DU Old Timers: Was The Carter/Kennedy Primary This Acrimonious?

[BlooInBloo]

Just curious. I was too little to have any decent memory of it.

EDIT: Oops.

[realisticphish]

1. well

that was before the internet, so i doubt there was the same constant level of warfare between supporters of both candidates

[HereSince1628]

5. True. No one had such ready opportunity to piss off thousands

It's elevated family dinner brawls at the table to a national level.

[realisticphish]

7. this is why

i don't post in GDP and tell no one on DU about my candidate choice ;)

[Old and In the Way]

6. Correct.

Our corporate media had a far easier time of managing the message and public opinion. Without the internet, I doubt we'd know of Barack. They'd have crowned Ms. Clinton as the people's choice....and we'd be none the wiser.

The internet has totally changed the dynamics our politics, particularly in the areas of information dissemination, fundraising, and organizing.

[Burma Jones]

2. Nope

There weren't so many news outlets back then.
And I think you are referring to Carter/Kennedy.....

[BlooInBloo]

4. Ooops - You're totally right! Thanks!

[CTyankee]

3. It got pretty bad, for its day.

It was a difficult time for the party because world events were making the Carter administration fall apart. Carter came to Washington with a bunch of pals from the statehouse in Atlanta and seemed unable to pull it all together (I lived and worked in D.C. at the time so that might have skewed my perceptions). Kennedy was seen as a kind of savior for the left, which had never completely trusted Carter to begin with.

That was the year I made the stupid decision to vote for John Anderson, out of a fit of pique for Kennedy not getting the nom. I regret it to this day...

[hedgehog]

21. I was out in the heartland and dependent on the three networks and

the newspaper. It was my impression that Jimmy Carter couldn't reach past the Washington insiders to communicate with people and that he also paid too much attention to the old, experienced hands. He came in with such promise for change and ended up changing nothing. He would have been much better off, IMO, if he'd stuck to his guns. I voted for Kennedy then Anderson because I was so disappointed by Carter.

[CTyankee]

22. I remember whenhe came into office. He brought a lot of GA buddies.

Many of them BECAME Washington insiders in time, of course, once they learned the ropes. Amazing how fast that happens.

Carter had many great qualities. His emphasis on human rights was a wonderful contribution and I admired him for that.

[RebelOne]

8. Not that I can recall.

[SidDithers]

9. Definately...

you can't imagine the sniping that went on between the Kennedites and the Carterbots in GD-P back then.

Sid

[FredScuttle]

24. Ah, the fights we used to have on the GD:P channel on the CB radio...

"Breaker, breaker....this is Teddy Belly looking for a beaver who loves her some Teddy Bear. Know whut I mean? Over..."

"10-4, this is First Mama...I'm voting for Peanut King all the way, daddy, and that Teddy Bear's gonna be put to sleep! Over..."

"Hold on one cotton-pickin' minute, mama....Teddy's got the experience and he'll keep the smokeys in line..."

[L. Coyote]

10. Acrimonious? Who is acrimonious? What Acrimony?

Just curious.

[ThomWV]

15. Sharp and bitter language - or, one of those hard words they used to give you on spelling tests.

[L. Coyote]

17. Not the question. Albeit, there are words I may not know the meaning of! LOL

[ThomWV]

18. I sit here going "Duh ..." I missed the point of your question completely. Dam me!

I'm sorry, I must be sitting here in a stupor.

What acrimony indeed. These little spats that the media is trying to make look like the death blows to the Democratic Party are nothing at all compared to the 'good old days' and ain't jack shit compared to what will be comming either.

This will be the nastiest campaign the Republicans put on in our lifetimes. Their backs are up against the wall, their money is down, and this is the only means of attack they know anymore.

[L. Coyote]

20. Under the Big Tent, it is all done with LOVE! The 'make war media' is just "looking in"

and they do not understand all the LOVE going round!

Thing is, we care about each other, or we would not be so concerned with what everyone thinks and says. Just another sign of all the LOVE going round.

[ThomWV]

23. Nicely put. nt.

[annabanana]

11. That was before Gingrich's scorched earth tactics. . . . n/t

[UTUSN]

12. Well, the media hated KENNEDY, ridiculed him as faking kisses with Joan

The boys in the bus would print things like, "Oh, oh, he's moving in for it. Yes, he's going for a kiss. There he goes!1 Oh, the kiss has landed!1" (paraphrase)

And that was when Roger MUDD single-handedly torpedoed KENNEDY with the one question, "What makes you think you should be president?" (paraphrase, I'll Google it)


But the hatred for CARTER by the KENNEDYs is symbolized by some event where the Prez was hosting and Jackie was standing on the stage, and CARTER moved down the line and was going to kiss her and she literally RECOILED, GRIMACED, and jerked herself away. I don't know when that was, before the primary probably.



On Edit: Here it is. My memory timeline is way off. I was thinking KENNEDY was running against CARTER when the latter was the sitting prez.

*******QUOTE*******

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Mudd

Ted Kennedy interview

Mudd is perhaps best remembered for an interview he conducted with Senator Edward M. Kennedy for a November 4, 1979 CBS special, "Teddy," aired three days before Kennedy officially announced his candidacy for the 1980 Democratic Presidential nomination. Mudd asked Kennedy, "Senator, why do you want to be president?," and Kennedy's supposedly vague and rambling answer was considered to be the beginning of the sharp decline in Kennedy's impressive poll numbers. President Jimmy Carter defeated Kennedy 50 percent - 38 percent in the Democratic primary vote. Although the Kennedy family refused any further interviews with Mudd, the interview helped strengthen Mudd's reputation as a leading political reporter. Broadcaster and blogger Hugh Hewitt has used the term "Roger Mudd moment" to describe a self-inflicted disastrous encounter with the press by a presidential candidate.

********UNQUOTE*******

[Warpy]

13. It certainly was in the Boston area

where many had little good to say about the pious and conservative man from Georgia. Others were knee jerk jerks who kept bringing up Chappaquiddick, even though most people in the area knew Kennedy had been blotto but judged blameless. The latter group were people who were yellow dog Dems who were offended that anyone would challenge a sitting president. The former group included people like me who thought Carter had sold us out on too many issues, especially reproductive choice.

Until now, the comparison has been between that race and the Dean vs. Kerry race in 2004, something that didn't come anywhere close in vitriol.

The present contest does come close. Unless there is a liberal third party candidate (John Anderson in 1980), I expect the loss of votes to bruised feelings and just plain sulking to be minimal. The truly passionate are a small minority.

[book_worm]

14. Any time a sitting president is challenged in the party it is acrimonious

Carter started way behind in the polls, but as the Iran hostage crisis began and his handling of it he rebounded. He won big in Iowa and even won NH and, of course, won the southern state primaries and states like IL and OH. But Kennedy rebounded later in the game and won NY, PA and CA and a few other races. He went to the convention even though his situation was worse than Hillary's. The party never really did unite and John Anderson running as a liberal independent picked up a lot of disafected EMK supporters (case in point Anderson got nearly 400,000 votes in MA while Carter lost the state by only 5000 votes).

[RaleighNCDUer]

19. That's what makes this season so crazy -

in many ways, the Clinton team is like a government in exile so running against them is practically running against the incumbent.

[hyphenate]

16. Watch who you're calling an old-timer, sonny!

BTW, DU isn't that old! :P

[BlooInBloo]

25. :) "Old" just means "older than me" - no worries...

... Similarly with "young", "tall", "short", "boy" (= male younger than me), "girl", "man", and "woman", and a host of others.

Yah, it's completely arbitrary, but it also provides an instant acquittal from any accusation of bias to use terms in this manner.

[Bucky]

26. It got pretty heated. I remember people getting into actual fights.

Of course the big fight I remember was at a bar when a pro-Carter guy at another table mentioned Chappaquidick. I was pro-Brown, but only 17--why in the hell did they bring me into a bar in the first place?--so I was sitting with the pro-Kennedy people. One Houston labor attorney reacted poorly by getting up and hitting the Carter guy over the back with a folding chair, just like pro-wrestling, only harder.

Yes, it got intense that year and no one was using "code words" back then. Of course they didn't have race boiling in the background, but then again, back in 1980 race wouldn't have been in the background at all. We've come a long way, but we've still got a long way to go.

[Ishoutandscream2]

27. 1980. My first time to vote and the year I graduated HS

I remember watching the convention, and at the end a show of "unity" on the stage with the Carter's and Kennedy's. I can still see Ted's scowl. He was not a happy camper, that's for sure.