The “vanity candidacy” of Bobby Kennedy, Jr.: A very dangerous distraction

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., billed the Philadel­phia launch of his inde­pen­dent can­di­da­cy as “an address to the nation”, but the pres­i­den­tial hope­ful went unseen or was or bare­ly glimpsed in Mon­day tele­casts, as news cov­er­age zeroed in on Hamas’ assault or Israeli set­tle­ments and mil­i­tary posts bor­der­ing the Gaza Strip.

Bob­by Jr., is, how­ev­er, a per­son who can strut sit­ting down, and will seize on any vehi­cle – anti-vaxxer con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries, pick­et­ing by strik­ing work­ers, oppo­si­tion to the U.S. aid­ing Ukraine – to thrust him­self into the pub­lic lime­light. He has skin in the 2024 game, the White House but also high­er lec­ture fees.

He also has Amer­i­can Val­ues 2024, a PAC that has raised $28 mil­lion and begins the inde­pen­dent bid with $11.28 mil­lion in the bank. The PAC has a big Mel­lon con­trib­u­tor and is court­ing Elon Musk. But Kennedy’s poll rat­ings, once four­teen per­cent when run­ning as a Demo­c­rat, have fall­en as vot­ers become aware of his embrace of con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries and flir­ta­tion with the extreme right.

The Repub­li­cans are wor­ried, as well they might be.

The reli­able Quin­nip­i­ac Poll asked vot­ers’ views of Kennedy. Forty-eight per­cent of Repub­li­cans gave him a thumbs-up while eigh­teen per­cent disapproved.

Just four­teen per­cent of Democ­rats approved of RFK, Jr., while fifty-sev­en per­cent gave him thumbs down. Inde­pen­dents were split, thir­ty-six per­cent approv­ing and thir­ty-sev­en per­cent disapproving.

A quar­ter of the elec­torate don’t know Kennedy. The Trump cam­paign, which feasts on con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries, moved imme­di­ate­ly to address the threat.

“Vot­ers should not be deceived by any­one who pre­tends to have con­ser­v­a­tive val­ues,” spokesman Steven Che­ung said in a statement.

Repub­li­can Nation­al Com­mit­tee Chair­man Rona McDaniel opined: “Make no mis­take: A Demo­c­rat in independent’s cloth­ing is still a Demo­c­rat. RFK, Jr., can­not hide from his record of endors­ing Hillary, sup­port­ing the Green New Deal, fight­ing against the Key­stone Pipeline and prais­ing AOC’s tax hikes – he is your tra­di­tion­al elit­ist lib­er­al and vot­ers will not be fooled.”

True, once upon a time Bob­by was being arrest­ed out­side the White House in a demon­stra­tion against the Key­stone Pipeline.

Late­ly, how­ev­er, we’ve seen him fuel­ing a con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry that Bill Gates some­how was involved spread­ing the coronavirus.

Bob­by showed up in Olympia as anti-vaxxer Repub­li­cans’ chief wit­ness when Wash­ing­ton leg­is­la­tors took up (and lat­er enact­ed) leg­is­la­tion strength­en­ing vac­ci­na­tion require­ments for chil­dren in our state’s pub­lic schools. (Bob­by was kicked off Insta­gram in 2021 for spread­ing mis­in­for­ma­tion about vaccines.)

Democ­rats, how­ev­er, have rea­sons to wor­ry as well.

The Green Par­ty can­di­da­cy of Ralph Nad­er almost cer­tain­ly helped flip the pres­i­den­cy to George W. Bush in 2000. Remem­ber, Nad­er took 100,000 bal­lots in Flori­da while Al Gore lost the Sun­shine State by just 500 votes.

Nad­er cam­paigned almost entire­ly in “blue” states, includ­ing Wash­ing­ton and Ore­gon. I inter­viewed him on an Octo­ber swing through the North­west. He railed against the Clin­ton Admin­is­tra­tion, debunked Gore’s envi­ron­men­tal cre­den­tials, while utter­ing hard­ly a word crit­i­cal of Bush.

Four of Bobby’s sib­lings – Rory, Ker­ry, and Joseph P. Kennedy II plus Kath­leen Kennedy Townsend – denounced his can­di­da­cy in a state­ment Mon­day. “Bob­by might share the same name as our father,” they wrote, “but he does not share the same val­ues, vision or judg­ment. Today’s announce­ment is deeply sad­den­ing for us. We denounce his can­di­da­cy and believe it to be per­ilous for our country.”

Jack Schloss­berg, grand­son of Pres­i­dent John F. Kennedy, filmed a video denounc­ing his cousin for “trad­ing on Camelot, con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries and con­flict for per­son­al fame and gain.”

“I know him, I have no idea why any­one thinks he should be pres­i­dent,” Schloss­berg added. “What I do know is his can­di­da­cy is an embar­rass­ment. Let’s not be dis­tract­ed by somebody’s van­i­ty project.”

Kennedy faces a daunt­ing chal­lenged try­ing to get on the bal­lot in even half of the fifty states. Expect that he will direct fire at the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Com­mit­tee, and not at the Trump cam­paign. Expect selec­tive cov­er­age by Fox News, which will select clips of Bob­by denounc­ing the Democrats.

In 2000, some North­west Democ­rats – includ­ing a Seat­tle City Coun­cil mem­ber – flirt­ed with Nad­er before return­ing, late in the game, to Gore.

The dam­age? Gore had to expend resources in our region which should have gone to Ohio, a state he nar­row­ly lost.

Schloss­berg put it best: “Joe Biden shares my grandfather’s vision of Amer­i­ca, that we do things not because they are easy but because they are hard.”

Pro­gres­sives face a hard task turn­ing back a MAGA move­ment built on con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries, lies, and dem­a­goguery, all of which is broad­cast on right-wing media and under­writ­ten by wealthy donors. Noth­ing less than the free­dom of our repub­lic is at stake. This is no time to indulge Bobby’s lec­ture fees.