The Kennedy Challenge

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But this is indeed a different Kennedy. Critics have said with considerable truth that no matter what his accomplishments in the Senate, Ted has neither John Kennedy's sharp intelligence nor Robert Kennedy's passionate convictions. He carries with him the burden of Chappaquiddick, a reputation for womanizing and the problems of separation from his troubled wife. But his biggest liability may be his image of being a big-spending liberal at a time when many public opinion analysts believe Americans have become more conservative. Opponents attach considerable significance to a Boston

Globe poll in September of New Hampshire Democrats, which showed Kennedy's 58% support dropped five points when voters were reminded of Chappaquiddick and twelve points when they were told of Kennedy's support for expensive Government programs.

No matter how optimistic Kennedy supporters are at the moment and how high the polls place him, Carter vs. Kennedy will be a long and bruising battle.

Many Democrats fear the party will be so badly split by it that the White House will be lost to the Republicans. On the other hand, many Republicans dread the possibility of a Kennedy victory. Says House Republican Leader John Rhodes:

"I'd help Carter, if I could. I don't want Ted Kennedy. He's tougher than hell.

He's got mystique—the name, the two dead brothers, the money. It adds up to trouble."

The White House strategy is to hit Kennedy early and hard. Last week Carter used ridicule to attack Kennedy. Said the President, at a dinner for supporters: "I asked my mama. She said it was O.K. My wife, Rosalynn, said she'd be willing to live in the White House for four more years." The point, said a Carter operative, is to test whether Kennedy has "the stomach to go through the humiliating, deflating experience of fighting for the nomination." Says another Carter aide of Kennedy: "He's going to get clawed. He's going to bleed, and then he's going to start dropping in the polls." Carter, who has already made public claims that he is not a man who panics, recently told a staffer, "Kennedy has no idea what he's in for." If not, the Senator has only to look around him. While campaigning in Louisville two weeks ago, he was confronted not only with placards bearing Mary Jo's name, misspelled as Kopechna, but also with a dummy of a female corpse and the sign KILLER.

Kennedy says he has thought it all out. He has been through so much already, he feels, that he does not see how this could be worse. "Maybe I'm wrong," he says. "Maybe it will be a lot worse than I think." Friends say that Kennedy is fatalistic about his life and about the special danger that he faces in running for President. For that reason, his family and closest friends refused their counsel when he asked for advice about getting into the race. To an outsider, one of them would admit only, "It's really scary." Says Kennedy: "I know how they feel. That's why it's a very personal decision."

See TIME's complete Ted Kennedy coverage.