Kennedy charts a new course to revive his campaign
Surrounded by five aides, a dozen Secret Service men and two dozen reporters, Ted Kennedy stepped off a Delta airliner at Boston's Logan Airport last week and waved to a cheering crowd. While a high school band struck up the Beatles' song With a Little Help from My Friends, Kennedy grinned and shouted, "We're going up to Maine and then to New Hampshire and all the way through to California. Then we'll see who is going to whip whose what." Equally boisterous at his downtown headquarters, he told supporters that he had challenged Carter to debate him when the two appear before the Consumer Federation of America in Washington on Feb. 7. Asked Kennedy, to a roar of approval: "Don't you think it's about time Carter came out of that rose garden?"
Kennedy no longer looked grim or dejected, as he did after his loss in Iowa, nor was he talking about withdrawing from the race if he loses in New England. After Iowa, he said that he had to beat Carter in Maine and New Hampshire to stay in the race, but now he claimed to be ready to go all no the contests.
If the Kennedy campaign was far from rolling, it appeared for the moment to be back on some kind of track. Essentially, Kennedy was now trying to appeal more to his natural constituency: the liberal-left wing of the Democratic Party, which had been sorely disappointed by his performance to date. He also took an aggressive stance in support of Israel when he appeared at the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in New York City last week. "We must never barter the freedom and future of Israel for a barrel of oil," said Kennedy, "or foolishly try to align the Arab world with us, no matter what cost." Declared a satisfied participant: "He said everything they wanted to hear."
Kennedy's new course was set in his biggest speech of the campaign, delivered at Georgetown University in Washington last Monday. Beforehand, his aides had argued heatedly how far he should go in stating his views. Finally, Kennedy had pounded his desk and ended the dispute: "Don't tell me what I can't say. If I'm going down, I'm going to go down fighting for the things I believe in." Later he added: "When my grandchildren ask me 20 years from now why I ran for President in 1980, I'll be able to tell them."
The Georgetown speech was cleverly crafted, occasionally eloquent, often contradictory and at points quite weak. Kennedy rightfully blamed Carter for seeming to want to fight in the Persian Gulf rather than take the necessary strong domestic actions that would curb the nation's dependence on foreign oil. He pointed out that nothing was done—or said—about Afghanistan until the Soviets actually invaded. He said it was Carter's appearance of weakness that encouraged Soviet aggression. Yet at the same time as he chided the President for his proposals to strengthen the U.S., Kennedy approvingly quoted Theodore Roosevelt: "Don't flourish your revolver and never draw unless you intend to shoot." Carter had made a "false draw" with his demands for withdrawal of the Soviet brigade in Cuba and then changed his mind, said Kennedy, and that move "may have invited the invasion of Afghanistan."