If his name was Robert Francis, the campaign would be a joke.
His name, however, is Robert Francis Kennedy Jr., the son of the iconic late Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of President Kennedy. His independent candidacy for President is reaching double digits in polls, posing a serious threat to Joe Biden's reelection.
RFK Jr. is trying to run both on the Kennedy legacy and as a neo-Maga critic of Biden. He is getting critical support from Trump allies. The candidate is full of conspiracy theories, on drugs and vaccines but also on his father and uncle's assassinations among others. It is marked by half truths and distortions.
Unlike earlier Kennedy campaigns there's not much seriousness. That was crystallized by his selection of 38 year old San Francisco philanthropist Nicole Shanahan, whose wealth can help fund the campaign. She is the least qualified vice presidential choice since Admiral James Stockdale, Ross Perot's running mate in 1992.
He is a man with grievances, perhaps reflecting a troubled earlier life: the murders of his father and uncle, scrapes with the law, a cocaine addiction and his second wife died of suicide. Associates say he has long displayed a resentment and peddled conspiracy theories.
But the 70 year old environmental lawyer is smart, articulate and his name remains magical in certain circles.
He offers a litany of progressive policies, raising the minimum wage, expanding free child care and reining in the military-industrial complex and corporate power, most pointedly the campaign contribution fueled clout of the drug industry.
But then he digresses into discredited charges about the dangers of drugs. Covid 19, he charged, according to a video, targeted Caucasians and Blacks while Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese are more immune. Another Bobby Kennedy falsehood: antidepressant drugs are a cause of mass murders.
He and Ms. Shanahan, who has a child with autism, still peddle the possibility that vaccines are a prime cause of autism -- a notion rejected by the vast majority of experts.
While he says his campaign is focused on restoring civility, he savagely attacks opponents like Dr. Anthony Fauci , the former NIH infectious disease expert who won widespread praise for leading efforts from AIDs to Covid. RFK jr charged Fauci's Covid restrictions were worse than Hitler's Nazi regime, an assertion so despicable that he backed down after much criticism including from his wife.
His other conspiracy charges also are specious. There is no evidence the CIA was involved in the assassinations of President Kennedy or of his father. Nor was RFK's claim that the 2004 Presidential election stolen from John Kerry as the then candidate himself acknowledges.
All this caused Politifact, the fact checking website that rates the accuracy of political claims, to designate the Lie of the Year to RFK Jr. in 2023. Beating out Donald Trump in a lying contest is quite an accomplishment.
Even more remarkable is the link between Robert F. Kennedy's son and Donald Trump. RFK Jr. was urged to run by Steve Bannon, the Trumpite right wing attack dog. His campaign has been largely funded by Trump backers like wealthy heir Tim Mellon. In interviews he frequently criticizes Biden, rarely Trump . Earlier this month he declared Biden was a greater threat to democracy than Donald Trump.
Although a few differ, I have little doubt that he would hurt Biden more, maybe even cost him the election.
While his message is antithetical to what the Kennedys have stood for --"He has nothing to do with what his father was all about or his father's values," says Peter Edelman, who was a top aide to RFK Sr.—the candidate uses every opportunity to trade on that legacy (it's difficult to imagine JFK more closely taking the Russian side in the Ukrainian war as RFK Jr. has).
The campaign ran a $7 million Super Bowl ad that was a carbon copy of a 1960 Jack Kennedy commercial. The tab was largely picked up by his future running mate.
He tried to embrace the popularity of his father's close political supporter, the late Cesar Chavez, the legendary head of the of the California farmworkers union, The Chavez family fired back, demanding he cease any claims of closeness. They are supporting the President. Cesar Chavez' granddaughter is the Biden-Harris campaign manager.
All this has embarrassed, even infuriated, the politically close knit Kennedy clan; several of his siblings have denounced his campaign as dangerous. Four dozen family members --ranging over three generations --gathered for a St. Patrick's Day picture with President Biden (RFK Jr. has expressed his displeasure to some relatives).
There are family conversations about other steps to take. Few of the Kennedys have a political persona these days. One who might is Joe Kennedy, a 43 year old former congressman and dynamic campaigner. Look for him to actively stump for the President in the months ahead.
A big deal, insiders say, would be if Caroline Kennedy, JFK's daughter, made joint appearances with Biden this fall. Currently she is the Administration's ambassador to Australia and while there has been no reaching out from the Biden-Harris campaign, other family members believe she would do it.
Most of these Kennedys believe it's imperative to stop RFK Jr.
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Agree with most of this piece, but I take exception to the line describing Shanahan as "the least qualified vice presidential choice since Admiral James Stockdale."
I don't make a habit of quoting Dennis Miller, particularly in the last two decades, but he said it well in 1994: "[Stockdale] became a buzzword in this culture for doddering old man, but let's look at the record, folks. The guy was the first guy in and the last guy out of Vietnam, a war that many Americans, including your new President, chose not to dirty their hands with. He had to turn his hearing aid on at that debate because those fucking animals knocked his eardrums out when he wouldn't spill his guts. He teaches philosophy at Stanford University, he's a brilliant, sensitive, courageous man. And yet he committed the one unpardonable sin in our culture: he was bad on television."
Admiral Stockdale was bad on TV, but he was 100x more qualified for the actual job of vice-president than Ms. Shanahan.
You people are nuts.
Agree with most of this piece, but I take exception to the line describing Shanahan as "the least qualified vice presidential choice since Admiral James Stockdale."
I don't make a habit of quoting Dennis Miller, particularly in the last two decades, but he said it well in 1994: "[Stockdale] became a buzzword in this culture for doddering old man, but let's look at the record, folks. The guy was the first guy in and the last guy out of Vietnam, a war that many Americans, including your new President, chose not to dirty their hands with. He had to turn his hearing aid on at that debate because those fucking animals knocked his eardrums out when he wouldn't spill his guts. He teaches philosophy at Stanford University, he's a brilliant, sensitive, courageous man. And yet he committed the one unpardonable sin in our culture: he was bad on television."
Admiral Stockdale was bad on TV, but he was 100x more qualified for the actual job of vice-president than Ms. Shanahan.