The drawn-out primary battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton has split Democrats as bitterly as the 1980 challenge by Sen. Edward Kennedy to President Jimmy Carter. Carter prevailed to win the nomination against GOP nominee Ronald Reagan, but the August convention in New York is remembered mainly for Kennedy’s rousing concession speech (see below and the following three pages). The only thing anyone remembers about Carter’s acceptance speech is that he slipped and called Hubert H. Humphrey, a hallowed party figure who’d died two years earlier, “Hubert Horatio Hornblower.” The gaffe was booed, and Carter lost in November. Kennedy remains in the Senate but was diagnosed this week with a brain tumor. The prognosis remains uncertain, but at the moment Kennedy is “in good spirits and full of energy,” according to his doctors.
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