Fr. Raymond de Souza wonders “what might have become of American politics if Kennedy has chosen a different path”:

By the early ’70s, Richard Nixon had won two presidential elections — the second one the greatest landslide in history — by fashioning a coalition that included cultural conservatives in large numbers. The lifestyle libertinism of the 1960s’ movements which coalesced behind George McGovern’s candidacy in 1972 proved culturally influential but a political liability. After McGovern’s loss and, a few months later, the Roe v. Wade abortion decision, it was still an open question about which direction the Democratic Party would go. Throughout the 1970s, many of the key Democratic leaders were pro-life, as was Kennedy himself up until the Roe decision. Had Kennedy resisted the culturally liberal trends in the Democratic Party, what might have been?
Kennedy’s family legacy, his impregnable position in Massachusetts (he won more than 60% of the vote the year after Chappaquiddick) and his national prominence rendered him immune from the pressures other politicians had to face. He could always choose his own path. Had he chosen to remain economically liberal but culturally conservative, he would have prevented the Democratic Party from embracing the orthodoxy of the unlimited abortion license. Had he remained pro-life the Democratic Party would have had to make place for other pro-life politicians. Had he remained pro-life many others —Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Jesse Jackson — would not have abandoned their pro-life positions as the price to be paid for national ambition.
In the 1970s, it was not clear that the Republican Party would become largely pro-life. Party leaders, including Nixon, Gerald Ford, Nelson Rockefeller, George Bush and even Ronald Reagan, favored liberalizing abortion laws. The GOP moved toward a pro-life position in response to the Democratic Party moving in the opposite direction. It was politically advantageous, and it was Kennedy who permitted that advantage to be conceded. By the 1980s what are now called “values voters” were a critical part of Reagan’s coalition. Many of the Reagan Democrats were those who were with Kennedy on economics but could not follow him on abortion and related cultural issues.
The Supreme Court decision on abortion made judicial appointments more politically salient, but confirmations remained largely pro forma affairs — Reagan’s first two appointments were confirmed without a single dissenting vote. But in 1987 Kennedy led the opposition to the nomination of Robert Bork, turning the confirmation process into a brutal, partisan battle. The verb “borking” entered the political lexicon to describe this ugly new version of cultural politics. Democrats would later bitterly complain about Republican tactics on “values,” but it was Kennedy’s prestige that made such politics acceptable.
The ‘Ted Kennedy Problem’
It was two of Kennedy’s fellow Massachusetts politicians who would reap most directly what Kennedy had sown. Both Michael Dukakis in 1988 and John Kerry in 2004 were defeated in campaigns in which values — not economics, not competence, not even war — were the dominant issues. Religious observance had become the most important predictor of voting behavior. Culture had become a partisan issue. Kennedy’s embrace of moral libertinism facilitated all that. Had he chosen differently he could have stopped the culture wars before they started. Few other politicians ever have the influence to make such a consequential decision.
Indeed, had Kennedy remained pro-life — along with his positions on immigration, health care, poverty, war and peace — he would have entered his senior years as the great Catholic legislator in terms of the welfare state, health care, big government, the peace agenda and the right to life. Remember the famous pastoral letters of the U.S. bishops on defense policy and the economy in the 1980s? They were both well to the left politically, easily in Ted Kennedy territory. If only he had remained pro-life, he would have been the poster boy of the American bishops for a generation.