Looks good President Lincoln. I have been looking forward to this chapter.
By the fall of 1982, the effects of “Kennedy-nomics” were being felt widely across the United States. GDP was up. Inflation and unemployment were down. Thanks to sequestration at the defense department, closing tax loopholes, and introducing a few new ones (the federal Value-Added Tax and tax on foreign currency speculation) with the Long-Ullman Tax Act, the federal budget deficit had been turned into a modest surplus.
Hallelujah, the economy is going good. I expect they'll call this the Kennedy boom in later years.
he Comprehensive Crime Control Act, passed and signed into law earlier that year, was also widely considered a success, proving to skeptical independents that Kennedy’s administration heard their concerns and was interested in bipartisanship.
RFK will always listen to citizens concerns. No matter what.
Between this “tough on crime” stance and his strong “containment” policy against the Soviet Union, Bob Kennedy enjoyed the confidence and support of a majority of the public - about 57% according to Gallup polling.
Wow most presidents would've killed for that type of approval rating. I don't think even Jack had that approval rating back in 62. At least before the missile crises.
The President and his party thus had every reason to be confident heading into the midterm elections. They hoped that voters would reward them for their efforts on election night - November 2nd, 1982.
A good expectation.
YES!!!
In the House of Representatives, Speaker Tip O’Neill (D - MA), one of the key members of what conservatives derisively called the “Massachusetts Mafia” (along with the Kennedys) who seemed to be running the show in Washington, saw a sixteen seat swing in his favor. This brought the Democrats’ total in that chamber to 291 seats, a supermajority.
Wow. A long time since they've had that.
But RFK’s personal popularity, which reached across ethnic and class lines in a unique way,
A coalition the likes of which has never been seen before.
Born and raised in the Pittsburgh suburb of McKees Rocks, PA, Kasich, 30 years old in 1982, was the son of the descendents of Czech (on his father’s side) and Croatian (on his mother’s side) immigrants. Kasich’s father, John Sr. was a mail carrier with the USPS. Raised Roman Catholic, Kasich attended public school in McKees Rocks and later left his native Pennsylvania, settling in Columbus, Ohio in 1970 to attend Ohio State University, where he joined the Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity. As a freshman, he wrote a letter to President George Romney describing concerns he had about the nation and requesting a meeting with the President. The letter was delivered to Romney by the university's president Novice Fawcett and Kasich was granted a 20-minute meeting with Romney in December 1970. He later graduated with a law degree and embarked on a career in the Ohio State Senate before his election to the US House in 1982, defeating incumbent Democrat Bob Shamansky in Ohio’s 12th District. One to watch in GOP politics.
It'll be interesting to see where his career goes ITTL. Also at least the person he met with ends up with a better reputation.
A former stockbroker and activist against the Cambodian War, forty-two year old Jewish-American Barbara Boxer won her first election to the US House from California’s 6th District in 1982 with the slogan “Barbara Boxer Gives a Damn”. Previously, Boxer had served as the first female president of the Marin County Board of Supervisors. She joined fellow Democrats Harvey Milk and Ron Dellums in representing the San Francisco Bay area in Congress.
Barbara and Harvey are gonna make one heck of a team in the house.
Succeeding retiring five-term incumbent Majorie Holt and holding the seat for Maryland’s 4th District (near the VA border, including Andrews Air Force Base) for the GOP, was former President George Bush’s daughter-in-law. Positioning herself as a moderate Romney Republican, and helped along by her husband’s family’s wealth and name recognition, Hillary managed to win 60.7% of the vote in a heavily Democratic year, becoming the only remaining Republican in Maryland’s entire congressional delegation. Nepotism did not win Hillary her seat, though. She was credited as a “spirited campaigner”, who reached out to “every community” within the district she sought to represent. Here, she continues her ascent of GOP politics.
Yes go Hillary!!! I am looking forward to seeing what she does in the house.
In the Senate, the Democrats’ fortunes were also good, if less exciting. They managed to pick up a single seat, expanding their majority (57 - 43).
Still a good majority.
nitially, the obvious choice seemed to be the current Majority Whip - Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts. Kennedy was a talented legislator in his own right, skilled at whipping votes and crafting legislation. He also occupied one of the safest “blue” seats in the country. Further, being the President’s brother, a strong working relationship with the White House was virtually guaranteed. There was only one problem: the image of the “Massachusetts Mafia”.
With a Kennedy in the White House and O’Neill, another Boston-Irish liberal as Speaker of the House, the national party and its chairman, Charles Manatt, feared that they would be concentrating too much of their political power in the hands of one region (the Northeast) and one wing of the party (the liberals). Resentment from other regions (particularly the South) and other wings of the party (particularly moderates and conservative communitarians) were already not-so-quietly brimming beneath the surface. If another Northeastern liberal (and a Kennedy to boot) also became Senate Majority Leader, it might well fracture the tenuous alliance holding the coalition together. The President and Speaker thus both met with Ted following Long’s announcement. The following day, Senator Kennedy announced that he would not seek the position of Majority Leader, and would, indeed, step down as Majority Whip.
The question, then: If not Ted Kennedy, then whom?
Yeah A Kennedy in the white house and a Kennedy in charge of the Senate would be a tall order to ask.
Byrd was also an opponent of tolerance for the LGBT+ community. He opposed repealing anti-sodomy laws at the state level, and was said to have “recoiled” when whispers emerged from the Pentagon in the early 1980s that President Kennedy “might consider” reviewing the legal status of homosexuals serving in the military. Byrd, a Southern Baptist, stated that he believed in the “sanctity of marriage” and considered homosexuality “a sinful, unnatural lifestyle”.
You know Senator Byrd the bible has a thing or two to say about "Love Thy neighbor as Thy self."
As if these views weren’t enough for President Kennedy to not want Byrd nominated, there was also the matter of personal slights. Byrd, then a close political ally of Lyndon Johnson, had supported Hubert Humphrey in the 1960 Democratic presidential primary in West Virginia over Jack Kennedy. Though Jack had managed to win the primary and later, the nomination without Byrd’s help, Bob Kennedy forgave his enemies, but never forgot their names. Bob thought of Byrd as a political enemy within the party, even if he’d eventually “seen the light” on racial issues.
Can't say I blame him.
Some within the Beltway and especially in the media speculated that Bumpers was hoping to position himself for a presidential bid in 1988. Becoming Senate Majority Leader would not only tie him strongly to that body, but also force him to take up the bill of the moment, whether it was one that he personally believed in or not. Not a legislative wizard in the same way as other Senators, Bumpers preferred to remain in his current position. If his attention was truly fixed on his future career prospects, then he wouldn’t be a good fit, regardless. The administration and its allies went back to the drawing board.
Maybe he could be a running mate in 1988 or even the democratic candidate.
Senator from Kentucky since 1974, Ford (58) was seen by most in Washington as a moderate centrist. He had opposed desegregation busing (even going so far as to support a constitutional amendment banning the practice), but generally supported civil rights and voted for all of the administration’s economic policies. A protectionist on trade issues and a staunch advocate of the tobacco industry (his state’s main cash crop), Ford considered himself “less interested in national issues than he was in Kentucky’s issues”. He supported the development of alternative energy, so long as it didn’t threaten coal jobs back home, and had worked with the West Virginia and Pennsylvania delegations to support better healthcare provisions for coal miners. Amenable to both liberals and conservatives within the party, Ford was elected Senate Majority Leader on the first ballot. John V. Tunney of California, a close friend and ally of Ted Kennedy (and his former roommate at the University of Virginia Law School) known for his focus on antitrust and environmental issues, was elected Majority Whip. Though Tunney was another Irish-Catholic liberal, his being from the West Coast helped smooth things over somewhat.
So he's no Harry Reid but at least he's acceptable to both conservatives and liberals.
On the Republican side, Howard Baker and Donald Rumsfeld retained their positions as minority leader and minority whip, respectively. Both were seen as relatively moderate members of the GOP, whose records showed a penchant for bipartisanship.
Yeah let's see how long that last.
Tom Bradley (D - CA) - One year after Kenneth Gibson won election as the first African-American governor of a state since Reconstruction, Tom Bradley, the popular Mayor of Los Angeles repeated much of Gibson’s campaign strategy to become the first African-American governor of California, the nation’s most populous state. Like Gibson, the fact that Bradley was able to win as an out and out liberal in a supposedly purple swing state was considered groundbreaking. Bradley defeated Republican George Deukmejian.
Nice! Is it possible to ask that he'd be a candidate in 1988.
Mario Cuomo (D - NY) - When Governor Hugh Carey declined to seek a third term as governor, Lt. Governor Cuomo declared his candidacy. Defeating Congressman Ed Koch in the Democratic Primary, Cuomo then went on to narrowly defeat Republican banker Lewis Lehrman in the general election. The grandson of Italian immigrants, Cuomo briefly considered a career in professional baseball before eventually becoming a lawyer and later, getting involved in politics. First, this was in his native Queens and later, on the state level.
I've always liked Mario. He could be another candidate in 1988.
Great chapter Mr. President. With good size majority in both houses RFK could pass even more legislation before he has to really start running for re-election. Can't wait for the next chapter.
I'm glad you enjoyed. 
