Not a Launching but a Scuttling

By Maureen Dowd. Reported by Hays Gorey and Evan Thomas/ Washington

Kennedy quits the presidential stakes, at least for 1984

The tip-off was the setting. Unlike the grand and spacious Caucus Room of the Russell Senate Office Building, where John and Robert Kennedy had launched their bids for the White House, Room 4232 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building is small and comparatively humble. Packed inside with a slew of Kennedy family members were the usual political retainers and loyal supporters, gathered together for the occasion: not the launching but the scuttling of a presidential bid. Announced Edward Kennedy last week: "I will not be a candidate for President of the United States in 1984."

The Senator, 50, explained that family circumstances, not political considerations, had dictated his decision. With Daughter Kara, 22, and Sons Ted Jr., 21, and Patrick, 15, seated in front of him in the first row, Kennedy said, "For the members of my family, the 1980 campaign was sometimes difficult, and it is very soon to ask them to go through it again. In addition, the decision Joan and I have made about our marriage has been painful for our children as well as ourselves. I believe my first and overriding obligation now is to Patrick, Kara and Teddy." After a three-year separation, Joan and Ted Kennedy plan to file, possibly this week, divorce papers that would officially end their 24-year marriage.

In an interview with TIME two days after his announcement Kennedy seemed relieved and relaxed. He said he believes he could have won the 1984 race had he entered. "Politically," he argued, "everything had been moving the other way--toward a declaration of candidacy." Kennedy struggled with his choice at the fam ily's Hyannisport compound on Cape Cod over the Thanksgiving holiday. On that Friday, his administrative aide, Lawrence Horowitz, gave the family a three-hour presentation purporting to show how Kennedy could win in 1984. But the Kennedy children, unmoved by Horowitz's sophisticated research and strategies, objected emphatically to the effect on the family of a two-year run. By the end of the holiday weekend, Kennedy was convinced.

There is no doubt that Kennedy is concerned about his children. The 1980 campaign, which raised the dual specters of assassination and the 1969 drowning death of Mary Jo Kopechne at Chappaquiddick, was, as one family friend said, "torture and torment for those kids." Such ghosts would be certain to haunt a 1984 presidential campaign. Patrick, who suffers from asthma, was so worried about his father's safety during the 1980 campaign that Kennedy called him daily.

Kennedy has taken the Shermanesque tack before, of course. In 1968 and 1972, he said no to presidential runs. In 1974, he said no to 1976. In 1979, he said yes to a 1980 run but was defeated after a fumbling challenge to incumbent Democratic President Jimmy Carter. While conceding that his children were a factor, one longtime Kennedy friend suggests that the embarrassment of the 1980 campaign had dulled Kennedy's appetite for the presidency. Said he: "Teddy can't get up on the horse any more." One veteran aide, who believes Kennedy could win the 1984 nomination but not the election, concluded, "I don't think the country wants or needs Kennedy as President. He's always made people worry. And they don't want to worry."

With Kennedy out, many other Democrats want in. Said Bill White, an aide to Ohio Senator John Glenn: "Half the Senate woke up this morning and saw the President in the mirror." Glenn's chances have obviously improved, though many political strategists say that the former space hero must somehow shed his bland image. Potential candidates Arizona Representative Morris Udall, Arkansas Senator Dale Bumpers and New York Senator Pat Moynihan have put out feelers. Colorado Senator Gary Hart's campaign was already under way. California Senator Alan Cranston portrayed himself as the logical liberal successor to Kennedy.

Mondale automatically inherits the front-runner spot, though that is not necessarily the best place to be nearly two years before the actual election. He seems the likely recipient of Kennedy's strength in the industrial states and of an endorsement from the powerful AFL-CIO, which might unite behind a single candidate before the first 1984 primary, something that was not likely as long as both Kennedy and Mondale were running. For the Democratic Party as a whole, there is a discernible feeling of liberation: many party managers around the country note, with an almost palpable sense of relief, that the Democrats, shorn of the great weight of Kennedy's past, can move forward and present to voters some new and newly plausible presidential faces.

It seemed that those most disappointed by the Kennedy decision, besides his die-hard loyalists, were White House aides. They had convinced themselves that Kennedy would win the nomination and then prove more vulnerable than other potential nominees in a match-up with President Reagan. Asked during his tour of Brazil if he might follow Kennedy's lead and choose not to run, Reagan replied, with a broad smile, "You know, I do not believe that there is much of a record of me imitating Teddy Kennedy."

In last week's announcement, Kennedy left the door open to a run in 1988, and has let it be known that he intends to remain a powerful force in the Democratic Party. He has already repositioned himself in the Senate, seeking a new seat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, where he will be a visible and vocal presence in the increasingly high-profile arms-control debate. He told TIME he will exercise "a strong voice" against unbridled defense spending and will argue that "a strong economy and a strong society are more vital to national security" than a string of new weapons systems. "Who knows," he says, flashing his famous smile. "Someday I may do it again." As he said at the press conference, "I don't think it's any mystery that I would like to be President." --By Maureen Dowd. Reported by Hays Gorey and Evan Thomas/ Washington

With reporting by Hays Gorey and Evan Thomas/ Washington

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