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" After it was all over, the Carter people were stunned by Kennedy´s conduct. Why? Why would the Kennedy crowd persist in defeat, knowing that their displays of rancor would only further weaken a Democratic president in the face of the Reagan challenge from the right? Well, Kennedy partisans hated to see all the romantic notion of the Kennedy mystique coming to an end. Camelot was dying, and most ignobly, at the hands of these crude Georgia boys. And on the other side of the equation, the Georgia boys could not fathom the animosity. They felt their man was not only a liberal and a populist but a politician of integrity and intelligence who had accomplished much in his few years in the White House. For the Georgians, Kennedy´s behavior at the convention was all about ego. As Jody Powell later said, ¨We neglected to take into account one of the obvious facets of Kennedy´s character, an almost childlike self-centeredness.¨ "

Kai Bird , The Outlier: The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter


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Kai Bird quote : After it was all over, the Carter people were stunned by Kennedy´s conduct. Why? Why would the Kennedy crowd persist in defeat, knowing that their displays of rancor would only further weaken a Democratic president in the face of the Reagan challenge from the right? Well, Kennedy partisans hated to see all the romantic notion of the Kennedy mystique coming to an end. Camelot was dying, and most ignobly, at the hands of these crude Georgia boys. And on the other side of the equation, the Georgia boys could not fathom the animosity. They felt their man was not only a liberal and a populist but a politician of integrity and intelligence who had accomplished much in his few years in the White House. For the Georgians, Kennedy´s behavior at the convention was all about ego. As Jody Powell later said, ¨We neglected to take into account one of the obvious facets of Kennedy´s character, an almost childlike self-centeredness.¨