Word: chappaquiddick
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Kennedy's noncandidacy is elaborately ambiguous, involving some deep and painful hesitations. The questions of Chappaquiddick remain in the public's mind and perhaps in Kennedy's own. He also has tragically good reasons to fear that he might not live through a race for the White House: even now he probably receives more death threats than any other American political figure except the President. Still he remains powerfully fascinated by the presidency?if not next year, then in 1976 or perhaps some election year beyond. Now 39, he could theoretically be a plausible candidate in elections...
...power?William Mc-Kinley, for example?can draw a maniac's fire. But the Kennedys are freighted with American legend and invite the passionate involvement of strangers. It shows in the grimy and lonely attention of people who have carved away pieces of the Dike Bridge at Chappaquiddick for souvenirs, or those who have taken to the Kennedy Center like locusts, swiping prisms from the chandeliers, bits of the wall coverings and pink marble handles from the ladies'-room faucets...
...Kennedy is unpredictable. If he should become the Democratic nominee, the only certainty is that it would be an uncommonly dirty campaign. Already some automobile bumper stickers are appearing: REMEMBER CHAPPAQUIDDICK and WOULD MARY JO VOTE FOR TED? The Republican National Committee's newsletter Monday this month showed a sign that hangs on the office wall in the Shiretown Inn on Martha's Vineyard, where Kennedy was staying the weekend of Chappaquiddick: PLEASE...
Officially, the Republicans would probably never even have to mention Chappaquiddick. Says a G.O.P. operative in California: "We'd talk about character, about stability and morality, and the voters couldn't help thinking about Chappaquiddick. Compared with that incident, Nixon comes out looking sincere and upright and wholesome...
...backlash of sympathy might develop for Kennedy. Says a leading House Republican: "Half the women in this country don't believe it ever happened, and the other half are dying to forgive him for it." According to an informal survey by TIME'S bureau chiefs across the nation, Chappaquiddick would not cut so deeply as an issue in a Kennedy run against Nixon as is commonly believed (see box, opposite). That could change if voters found themselves in the booths next November, forced to make a decisive judgment about the case. For the episode does indeed raise a serious question...