“You might be right. OTOH, having the nickname “The Swimmer” has not seemed to really hurt Ted Kennedy in any substantive way.”
It’s why he never ran for President. With that kind of baggage one get elected via to a provincial post via brute force political machine, but as a national candidate it is non starter.
Ted Kennedy ran for president in 1980 and lost to Carter. Kennedy blew his interview with Roger Mudd in late 1978 and really couldn’t recover. In fact, CBS gave Kennedy two Roger Mudd interviews (they shelved the first one) and the idiot blew the second one.
Full attention should be on utterly destroying the socialist-obama-msm machine. Palin can contribute mightily to that effort even if she does not run for office. For instance, she can megaphone the grotesque corruption and collusion of Obama and GE/NBC with regards to “Global Warming”. She can lead the coming roar against irresponsible spending, high taxes, fraud and media malpractice. She can lead the charge against the corrupt elites in both parties that are busy ruining the US.
She can talk about Obama and Ayers without some back-stabbing filth like Steve Schmidt or RINO punks trying to rein her in.
Ted Kennedy did run for president in 1980. He got in the primaries against Jimmy Carter & finished a respectable 2nd in the delegate count. Close enough that some backroom shennanigans nearly got him the nomination.