Kennedy’s acid test

Press, 2 April 1980, Page 9

Kennedy’s acid test

NZPA-Reuter Chicago The United States Presidential election Campaign returns to America’s .Mid-West today, and the results should measure the extent of Senator , .Edward I. Kennedy’s revived bid to replace. Mr Jimmy Carter- in the White ■House. . Primary elections in the -states of Kansas and, Wisconsin will, show whether Mr ■ Kennedy’s upset victories over President Carter in last month’s New York and Connecticut primaries were just -an aberration, or the turn of the tide against Mr Carter. • Jewish anger over United States support for a stronglyworded United Nations resolution condemning Israeli •settlement, in occupied Arab territory.;was a big factor in Mr Carter’s- unexpected defeat in NeW York. A victory in the unpre-

dictable and liberal-leaning state of Wisconsin could give Mr Kennedy’s'challenge nationwide credibility and make him. a serious threat to Mr Carter. The President should, win traditionally conservative Kansas, but could suffeij g backlash from the farm, Vble in the nation’s biggest wlidatgrowing state. His decision to embargo food exports to the Soviet Union because of the crisis in Afghanistan is largely, blamed for declining grain prices. Mr Ronald Reagan, the 69-year-old former California Governor who easily leads the Republican race, should comfortably in Kansas. His challengers are •Congressman John Anderson of Illinois and Mr George Bush, a former ambassador to the United Nations.

Mr Kennedy could be hurt in Wisconsin by the lastditch campaign of the third Democratic candidate, the California Governor (Mr Jerry Brown).. Mr Brown, has been travelling throughout the state for more than three weeks and-is hoping that the large student vote will rescue his floundering campaign. The Wisconsin contest is also an open primary in which voters are free to cross party lines. In the last Mid-West primary in neighbouring Illinois two weeks ago, a number of registered Democratic voters switched to Mr Anderson because of -lingering . doubts over Mr Kennedy’s behaviour in the 1969 Chappaquiddick incident when his young female companion drowned in a car accident.