Kennedy, facing another loss, vows to go on

Press, 25 March 1980, Page 8

Kennedy, facing another loss, vows to go on

NZPA-Reuter New York President Carter and Ronald Reagan are tipped as the big winners in tomorrow’s New York and Connecticut presidential primary elections, but Senator Edward Kennedy refuses to be written off.

Senator Kennedy was bombarded yesterday with questions on how long he can stay in the race to deprive President Carter of the Democratic Party’s nomination.

The senator shrugs off those questions and managed visits to a Roman Catholic Church, a black Baptist church, and a Jewish bar mitzvah banquet hall in his; quest for a political miracle. On N.B.C. Television’s “Meet the Press” pro-! gramme, Mr Kennedy was’ asked about 20 questions.'

Two-thirds of- them dealt with how long he could continue as the candidate who has been beaten everywhere but in his home state of Massachusetts by President Carter.

The senator declared he hoped to win it the party convention in New York this August, and when asked if a defeat in the -New York primary would at least force him to retreat to running his campaign in Washington, he' said: “I can’t do that, both chemically and viscerally, it wouldn’t be right.” Then he left to revitalise his sagging campaign among < black and Jewish voters, two groups that traditionally have been friendly to the Kennedy family. The first was a black Baptist church in Brooklyn,; where he was introduced by I Pastor Samuel Austin who! in effect urged voters not to !

judge the senator on Chap-' paquiddick — an issue which appears to have badly damaged Mr Kennedy’s quest for the White House. There has been growing public disquiet about the senator’s actions in the 1969 Chappaquiddick incident in which a young woman secretary drowned in his car after it crashed into a tidal pool in Massachusetts. He did not report the accident 'for some hours. In ringing pulpit language, Mr Austin declared: “No man is all halo and no horns. No man is all plus • and no . minus. There are some skeletons in all our closets. I give you a man, not a saint, not a god, not a saviour, a true man. Who is here that has not made some 'mistakes? | “He took a stand for u-s. We :ask you to take a stand for ihim.”