Yes, Senator Kennedy did endorse and campaign for President Carter in 1980

[book_worm]

(I saw a thread asking this question and there seems to be some questioning as to whether Sen. Kennedy did in fact endorse and work for President Carter in 1980 and the answer is yes):

Boston, Massachusetts Remarks on Arrival.
August 21, 1980

SENATOR EDWARD M. KENNEDY. Well, it's a pleasure to welcome Jimmy Carter to Boston, Massachusetts, as the President of the United States and also as the nominee of the Democratic Party.

During the early days of last summer, Mr. Carter was behind Mr. Reagan in the polls, but there is no authority like myself in the country that can say with greater authority than I can, in the crucial times when the time comes to vote, that Mr. Carter is successful. And I am confident that he'll be successful in November, and I'm determined that he'll be reelected as the President of the United States.

Mr. President, the early Founding Fathers of this country said that Massachusetts should lead the way, and over the period of the last five Presidential elections, this State has voted for the Democratic nominee. And I think all of those who have gathered out here to greet you in Boston are ready and willing to put their shoulder to the wheel and make sure that you're reelected as the next President of the United States.

Welcome to Boston and welcome to Massachusetts.

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=44924

Another: Boston, Massachusetts Remarks to Senior Citizens.
October 15, 1980

Senator Kennedy, Speaker O'Neill, Mayor Kevin White, my fellow workers in Washington, and those State and local officials who are here today:

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=45298

Secaucus, New Jersey Remarks at a Democratic National Committee Fundraising Reception:

I'm deeply grateful to Senator Kennedy for the warm words of support and the introduction that he gave to me and for a chance that I had to be with him this morning in Massachusetts and again here tonight in New Jersey. If I can just have all the support on November 4 that he got here in the primary, I will be very happy and we'll go over the top, there's no doubt about that.

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=45305

The President with Sen. Kennedy October 20, 1980 at a Democratic function in New York City:



Chairman George [Weissman], who's done such a good job in helping me at this crucial time; my good friend Ted Kennedy, who has been campaigning around this Nation with me, at my side, reminding Democrats in Los Angeles and in Massachusetts, in New Jersey, in Washington, in Ohio, later in Texas, of the finest traditions of the Democratic Party, which his family represents; Governor Hugh Carey, who has been such a staunch supporter of the principles that I myself espouse, and a strong leader in every element of the life of New York State; Ed Koch, ,who's been a staunch defender of New York's right to exist as a viable, ongoing, happy, dynamic, and united city, and all of you who've come here tonight to make this a success:

[Tal Vez]

1. Sanders doesn't have to campaign for anyone, but I think he almost certainly will campaign

for Clinton. I think he's making a mistake in waiting like he is, but he obviously thinks there is some advantage to waiting. I look at all of the marvelous publicity that Senator Warren is getting. She's a team player and she's not trying to manipulate Clinton or her electoral strategy.

For some reason, Sanders seems to believe that he needs to try to make it appear that he is "getting" something in exchange for his support. However, Sanders must know that Clinton cannot let it be thought that Sanders is running her campaign so it's unclear what kind of illusion he is hoping to receive. He knows that they have similar objectives.

Maybe he will write a book someday. I would encourage him to emulate Senator Warren.

[scscholar]

2. You're righ tabout doesn't have to...

but will he?

[Tal Vez]

3. You shouldn't bet against it.

Senator Sanders has been a professional politician for a long, long time. He didn't last this long by being stupid. He is looking for a way that both he and Clinton can gain an advantage.

[Eric J in MN]

17. A good compromise would be

...for HRC to say that her tuition plan is the best, but if Congress passes Sanders' tuition plan, she'll sign it.

That wouldn't contradict anything she's said. It would just be a clarification.

Sanders could then tour colleges asking people to vote for HRC and to vote in a Democratic Congress for a possibility of his tuition plan becoming law.

[Tal Vez]

18. I am confident that she will support a level of support as broad as any Congress will give.

What she should announce that she will do is a political question that should be answered by her and by the folks who are handling the strategy of her campaign. But, I have no doubt that she will want more support for education than the Congress is likely to want to provide.

[Eric J in MN]

19. She could address the possible types of Congress we may have in a statement on tuition.

She could write something like: There may be a Republican Congress eager to make cuts to education, and I'll veto bills which do so. I hope we will have a Democratic Congress which will pass my debt-free tuition plan, which I would gladly sign. If we have a Democratic Congress which instead passes Senator Sanders' tuition plan, I would sign that as well.

[Tal Vez]

23. I suspect that she probably will say something like that. Exactly what she says is

best left to her and to her campaign experts. It doesn't matter what she says if she doesn't win. She and her experts are better situated than me to determine what statements are most likely to lead to a victory.

It's enough for me to know that having watched her for 25 years, I am confident that she will get the best deal possible for students at all levels. In the same way, Trump doesn't have to say anything specific for me to know that if he becomes president, he will be saying and doing crazy things all the time. I think I understand these two people well enough to make a choice between them even if neither of them ever says anything more between now and November.

I think that our choices are obvious and I recognize that some people will prefer Trump. There is nothing that I can do about that. But, I will be choosing Clinton.

[ucrdem]

4. Hey thanks.

Great pic. Are you listening Senator Sanders?

[merrily]

5. Body language and eyes say a lot.

[Ken Burch]

6. What cost Jimmy Carter a second term were the two most right-wing choices he made in office:

1) Accepting economic advisor and future DLC founder Al From's argument that his administration's economic policies should make low inflation a higher priority than full employment(and that, with the country in recession, social spending should be cut rather than increased), which created the "misery index" the Reagan campaign used so devastatingly;

2) Supporting the Shah of Iran to the bitter end, and then giving him sanctuary from his own people in this country, which caused the hostage crisis.


If Carter had chosen different policies on even one of those things, there is no possible way Reagan would have won in 1980.

Once he committed to both of those choices, there was nothing Teddy or anyone else could possibly have done to save him from defeat.

[MADem]

7. Carter was between a rock and a hard place with Shah.

If he'd dumped Shah, our allies (and many of them were led by banana republic style leaders) would have said "Well, shit, America doesn't keep their word...."

Khomeini was murdering people in the streets WHOLESALE, stringing up government officials and putting their hanging corpse pictures on the front page of the Teheran newspapers. There was no making deals with him--he'd kept 52 of our people hostage in the embassy for over a year. The tv program NIGHTLINE came out of constant nightly coverage of the hostage crisis.

Khomeini loved the strife and drama. He liked poking The Great Shatan, as he called us.

Shah ended up in Egypt thanks to Carter's friendship with Sadat, and Sadat's willingness to be a stand-up guy (our foreign aid didn't hurt, either, but it was still a solid thing for Anwar to do). He wasn't there for long, though, he died of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma not long after settling in there.

If the operation at Desert 1 had been successful, Carter would have been elected in a landslide. That debacle sealed his fate.


As for Shah's family, they are living in USA, and spend some time in Paris as well.

[Ken Burch]

9. Khomeini was a horrible figure-but why was the Shah worth the trouble?

I can't see that he deserved any more protection in 1979 than Mussolini in 1943.

The only "allies" who could possibly have felt offended by that were tyrants who were inevitably going to get overthrown themselves...like Somoza(whom the Carter did NOT send in the Marines to defend when it became clear that the people of Nicaragua wanted him gone).

It was never a sustainable strategy to base U.S. security strategy on alliances with bloodsoaked monsters. It would always have been far better to make it clear that we were going to accept the right of everybody around the world to organize their societies the way THEY wanted them, without us staging coups or setting up economic blockades or embargoes when they defied us by putting people before profit.

And the Shah aside, it was still indefensible for Carter to put low inflation before full employment as an economic priority. Full employment is good for the country as a whole...low inflation is mainly good for a few millionaires(especially if it is maintained at the price of increasing unemployment).

People expect a Democratic president to put preserving jobs and protecting the living standards of working people first(while working hard to lift the poor out of poverty).

You can't let joblessness rise AND cut services and expect workers and the poor to show up for you at the polls. A party wanting the support of the kind of people the Democratic base consists of needs to actually show loyalty to those people, rather than expecting loyalty for next to nothing.

[MADem]

10. We weren't allies with Mussolini. I mean, come on--you're talking apples and oranges, here.

We were AT WAR with Mussolini--that comparison is just not appropriate.

Perhaps you are unclear on the history. We had a longstanding strategic relationship with Shah. We installed him in power (See Kermit Roosevelt for additional info). We provided him with weapons and training and we had a US military base on his soil. He employed tens of thousands of US civilian contract personnel from Bell Helicopter, Sikorsky, Boeing, Lockheed, Westinghouse, E-Systems, etc. He provided us with affordable oil so we didn't have to pump so much of our own.

His government was ALLIED with ours. Carter would have looked like a craven shit had he abandoned Shah.

[Ken Burch]

11. And we never SHOULD have installed the Pahlevis. It was none of our business to force Iran

to have an absolute monarchy.

(btw, I hope to hell you weren't arguing that, if Mussolini had allied himself with us in the Thirties, that the US should have protected him from antifascist revolts-as we essentially did with Franco after he pretended to be "neutral" in World War II).

I'm familiar with the rest of the U.S./Iran relationship.

And we had no right to reinstate the Shah by force in 1953. If we hadn't done that, there would never have been a Khomeini. Our leaders CAUSED Khomeini by preventing the overthrow of the Shah by any other means(and possibly by pressuring Shapour Baktiar, the immediate post-Pahlevi leader, into refusing to disband the Shah's secret police and refusing to guarantee that the Shah would not be allowed to return to power).

It's a little surprising that you don't see in the Iranian story a lesson about the futility of ever basing this country's security arrangements on the survival of monsters like the Pahlevis, or the House of Saud, or Mubarak(and now the Egyptian generals).

It's time we started forming alliances with the majority of the human race for a change-that we start building stability and peace on the foundations of a just world. Can't work any worse than what we've been doing instead.

[MADem]

12. Well, take that up with the British--they weren't enamoured of the concept of Mossadeq

cozying up to Russia during the Cold War and nationalizing all those British Petroleum assets in Persia. They were our partners in that exercise.

It's a lot more complicated than you want to make it out to be. It's not just about the Saudis, either--they were only one of the pillars of our Middle East strategy back in those USSR days. Shah was one of our bulwarks in the region, as was Turkey, with their enormous conscription military.



It was a different world, with different priorities. You can't apply 21st Century priorities and sensibilities to events that happened seventy years ago. Well, you can, if you'd like, but they're simply not apropos--just as a comparison of Shah to Mussolini (that leap you made is not based on anything I said, BTW) is not appropriate, either.

[Ken Burch]

13. 21st Century priorities? I was saying this in 1979.

We didn't have to make EVERYTHING about the freaking Soviets. The USSR was not the only thing that mattered in life.

And the "Soviet threat" would have come to an end decades earlier if only our leaders hadn't made it clear that we wouldn't tolerate any social and economic change ever being implemented anywhere in Asia, Africa, or Latin America. It was always folly to make our global position contingent on the preservation of the power of the generals and the wealthy in all of those countries. That was never going to be a sustainable situation and it didn't lead to anything getting better in the world.

Remember what JFK said(but didn't live up to in practice)about the need to allow peaceful change.

[MADem]

14. Well, I was living in Iran in 1979--so my perspective is based on what was

happening on the ground at the time.

And if you don't think the Russians were all over Teheran and Esfahan and other centers where international interests intersected, I have a bridge to sell you. I was appproached repeatedly by those asses. They were about as subtle as a Mack truck.

As for JFK, well...whatever:

[Ken Burch]

15. i did point out that JFK didn't live up to his rhetoric on that point

(Bobby would have, which is one of the reasons I think the establishment had him killed).

We missed our chance in not forming a global alliance with the poor and the oppressed.

You can't maintain a stable world order built on alliances with despots.

If we had built an alliance with the dispossessed, the Soviets would have had no place to go in post-1945 politics.

[MADem]

16. Everyone was making the best deals they could manage post WW2.

I am not about to Monday morning quarterback them--they made mistakes, and they learned from them.

We'll never know how Robert would have turned out--but this notion that he was a complete bleeding heart is not supported by many of his POVs. This is as good a description of his many facets as any:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jun/06/robert-kennedy-assassination-anniversary

And for a candidate long memorialized as a liberal icon in spirit, he was in reality a New Democrat (before that term became a four-letter word to liberals). He talked about reducing the role of the federal government in "telling people what's good for them", and spoke of creating incentives for businesses to save the ghettos from unemployment and economic decay. He bragged about lowering taxes on private companies and played up his experience as the nation's chief law enforcement officer. He veered so far to the right during the campaign that then-California Governor Ronald Reagan joked that Kennedy was sounding more and more like Barry Goldwater.

Yet, it was precisely this type of apostasy that made Kennedy such a compelling and intriguing political figure: it was not his philosophical firmness, rather his ideological suppleness. He was a politician nearly impossible to pigeonhole with static labels like liberal, moderate or conservative. He was, at various times, all of the above.

Kennedy was the rare figure for whom, as his prospects for higher office grew, so, too, did his political personality evolve – and the two were in conflict until the day he died.

In retrospect, Kennedy was not the saintly and courageous figure that he is often remembered as. Instead, he was one of the most compelling and complex politicians of his generation – a man who through much of his life, but particularly in his bid for the presidency, was torn between a driving, near-pathological desire to win and an equally powerful impulse to see wrong and try to right it.

He did care about issues of poverty, but he was no Gandhi. Complex guy, raised in an era when Americans liked to claim they'd never lost a war. A lot of machismo American-style was at the heart of some of the bone headed calls made in the 2nd half of the 20th Century.

Live and learn, I suppose.

[Chathamization]

24. We didn't install the Pahlavis. N/T

[MADem]

8. He didn't help--that was one of the very few elections where MA voted for the Republican....and

Kennedy had a LOT to do with that.

It's why Carter does the side eye when talking about TK.

[Vinca]

20. By continuing to beat this drum, it's implied that Hillary can't win without Bernie.

I bet you didn't intend that to be the case.

[Bluenorthwest]

21. After the Convention of course he did. After. August 11-13 was the Convention.

In this cycle, we have not yet held a convention. Teddy did not campaign for Jimmy prior to the convention that year, as I'm very sure the OP knows.

[DemonGoddess]

22. I expect Sen Sanders

to do what Jerry Brown did in 1992.