Beware the Kennedies! Biden could suffer the same fate as Carter 1980, warns DAVID MADDOX

A Democrat becomes US President after scandal engulfed his Republican predecessor who also faced impeachment.

But now in the White House he is seen as weak, confused and ineffectual; a war divides the nation, the economy is tanking; his ratings are at a record low for a President; the Republican right is on the rise and a foreign policy disaster seems to sum up his failures as he seeks re-election.

Then, to make matters worse, a rival for the Democrat nomination emerges from America's most famous political family - the Kennedies - and in so doing his party is split as he attempts to win a second term.

This scenario perfectly describes Joe Biden's current political woes but actually it is a description of what happened 43 years ago to President Jimmy Carter in the run up to being humiliated in the election by Ronald Reagan.

Carter had beaten Gerald Ford in 1976 after Richard Nixon was forced to resign over Watergate, but his bid for a second term was mortally wounded by being forced to fight tooth and nail against Senator Ted Kennedy for the Democrat nomination.

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The parallels between 43 years ago and today are remarkable. Just as Biden came to the White House after attempts to impeach Trump, Carter had arrived on the back of Nixon and Watergate.

Carter's presidency was overshadowed by the US hostage crisis in Iran and Biden's his abject failure in Afghanistan.

America in the 1970s was divided over war in Vietnam, now it is divided over war in Ukraine.

Biden is now seen in polls as incompetent and incapable as was Carter in 1980 and the country is racked with an inflation driven economic crisis.

The Republican right is currently choosing which is their candidate between Trump and DeSantis while in 1980 they had their champion Ronald Reagan.

Now Biden is facing a significant challenge from Robert F. Kennedy Jr while in 1980 RFK's uncle Senator Ted Kennedy posed the threat to Carter being the nominee for a second term.

In fact, RFK Jr is the first serious contender against a sitting Democrat President seeking four more years since his uncle went into that contest against Carter.

The main difference now is that Ted Kennedy was the early favorite but his campaign fell apart after a moment in the televised debate with Carter where he was unable to answer why he wanted to be President.

Robert Kennedy is often dismissed as "a fringe candidate" and is certainly far from being the favorite against Biden with his views on finding a settlement in the Ukraine war, his questioning of lockdown and vaccine policy and his backing for free speech.

None of these policy positions chime well with the majority of the modern Democrat Party but, nevertheless, in the Democracy Institute poll for the Daily Express US he is still picking up almost a third (31 percent) of registered Democrats support.

Even though the strong likelihood is that the ailing Biden will in his 80s be running for a second term against whoever the Republicans support, the tussle with a Kennedy could be extremely damaging - as it was for Carter.

Democracy Institute director Patrick Basham said he believes Biden needs to take a warning from 43 years ago.

He told the Daily Express US (in the longer video interview above): "Robert Kennedy's numbers are actually very good. And when you consider that he's only been a candidate for a matter of weeks."

Basham pointed out that this was done with very little money comparatively.

He said that Kennedy taps into "the anti-establishment sentiment which has always been there in the Democrats" a little like Bernie Sanders did against Hillary Clinton in 2016.

He went on: "It's a really bad sign for Biden, because when a president of either party receives a significant really vigorous challenge with from within his party for his nomination, it tends to mean that he's in some trouble and he's going to have trouble when he comes to the general election to get his base vote out and defeat his you know his opponent on the other side of the partisan aisle."

Comparing it to the Kennedy/ Carter battle in 1980, he added: "Ted Kennedy did wound Carter. He demonstrated that the liberal side of the Democratic Party was dissatisfied with Carter who was seen as sort of a moderate southern Democrat, too moderate for them. 

"That was part of the reason why Carter wasn't able to beat Reagan in 1980, and here we are looking at the same situation again in 2024."

Basham's argument has a lot of merit but there is one difference with 1980 in that back then that the Republicans rejected the establishment candidate George Bush sr and united behind what would now be as the "populist" candidate Ronald Reagan.

That seems to not be as clear cut in 2024 with Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis heading a large and talented field of potential candidates looking at the Republican nomination from a highly divided party.

Maybe the Democrats will split but a divided Republican Party could yet save Joe Biden.

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