Ireland’s pull on America’s politicians
IRISH affairs have rarely figured prominently in American Presidential elections, but for a time it looked like it might be very different in 1980, especially after Senator Edward Kennedy launched his campaign for the Democratic nomination for President on November 8, 1979.
He enjoyed a commanding lead in the initial public opinion polls. A New York Times poll put him 54% to 20% ahead of President Jimmy Carter, who was bidding for re- election. But the Kennedy campaign quickly became unstuck with the revival of stories surrounding his expulsion for cheating as a student at Harvard University and a 1969 car accident in which a young woman drowned after he drove off a bridge.
