Was it shocking when Jimmy Carter beat Ted Kennedy in the 1976 primaries?

It pissed the snotty political media off for sure. How dare a peanut farmer from the south displace their beloved drunk driver! Fun fact, Jimmy Carter wanted universal healthcare but Ted blocked it because he was a vindictive shit.

A bit. Sadly, I think his jealousy is why Ted blocked universal health care when it would passed and made the country a much better place.

Wow I never heard that about the healthcare. What was his justification?

A bigoted cracker or a murderer. Some choice!

Ted Kennedy never lived down abandoning Mary Jo Kopechne and leaving her to die in the water.

Actually it was 1980 that Kennedy challenged the sitting President ( Carter) in the primaries. Carter was weak due to the economy , high gas prices, rising interest rates , Iran hostages , etc. In 1976 , Carter was one of many who ran in the primaries , including Jerry Brown , Sen. Henry Jackson , Mo Udall and a few other candidates. Carter won mostly because he was fresh blood and Ford pardoned Nixon.

[quote] Jimmy Carter wanted universal healthcare but Ted blocked it because he was a vindictive shit.

Before he did that to Carter he also blocked Nixon's universal health care program. Thanks to the𝘓 𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘦𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘦 America lost half a century of what would have been similar to Obamacare.

Then the hypocrite spent decades pandering for votes making speeches promising to work for healthcare.

Shortly before his death he apologized fir blocking Nixon's plan. He never made a similar apology to Carter.

The Kennedys were a major curse on America.

Hillary Clinton, as First Lady, tried to make national health care happen.

Nope. Teddy didn't have the greatest reputation at that time. it was post-Chappaquiddick. Also, it was an unspoken rule that you never challenged the president of your own party. So there was that. Carter was not popular with Congress. Even his own party. He didn't "court" them, his relationships were bad to non existent. And he brought all his Georgia people with him, they were referred to as the Georgia Mafia. They were with him in the Governor's Office and held the most key positions in the WH. They definitely didn't know their way around at all.Simple things like returning a Senator's phone call, or making sure to send birthday greetings to a Congressman's mother simply went over their heads. But it was Carter's stubbornness about legislative matters that derailed a lot of his agenda.

R9 here. TheHe could have hired people to who knew how things worked, but he was too loyal. Then we had the damned Iranian hostage crisis. It was a gift from Nixon and Kissinger. The Shah was verfy ill and we allowed him to get treatment here. Also, for some reason, our CIA didn't seem to notice the demonstrations by militant muslims against the Shah going on in plain sight, encouraged by the Ayatollah who was liviThe revolution was one of the biggest CIA fails in our history. On Jimmy's watch. But it began under Nixon/Ford and Kissinger. Nixon was very close to the Shah.