Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Political Mercenary?
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Political Mercenary?
That Seems Unlikely.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is political mercenary and opportunist, willing to sell his ideology to the highest bidder.
At least, that is what the Washington Post wants us to believe, based on their reporting.
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sought a meeting last week with Democratic nominee Kamala Harris to discuss the possibility of serving in her administration, perhaps as a Cabinet secretary, if he throws his support behind her campaign and she wins, according to Kennedy campaign officials.
On its face, this might not seem all that improbable, as Kennedy has been for the entirety of his career up until this Presidential election a committed Democrat. Indeed, among his aspirational hopes for his Presidential candidacy when he first announced as a Democrat was to return the Democratic Party to where it stood in the 1960s, invoking the memories not just of his own father and uncle but also that of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
I don’t want the Democratic Party to be the party of fear and pharma and war and censorship. We have to be more than just neocons with woke bobbleheads. We need we need you know, we need to stand up to corporations. We need to stand against war. We need to—we need to put our children first. We need to stop listening to the large corporations in many ways. And that’s what a Kennedy Democrat is. We need to bring this party back to the party of FDR, of JFK, of RFK, Martin Luther King, and those values.
It might not be entirely out of bounds, therefore, for Kennedy to explore attempting that reform from within a Kamala Harris Administration rather than pursuing an independent RFK, Jr., Administration.
However, the Washington Post also reported RFK, Jr., making substantially the same offer to the Trump team.
The Kennedy outreach, made through intermediaries, follows a meeting in Milwaukee last month between Kennedy and Republican nominee Donald Trump to discuss a similar policy role and endorsement that resulted in no agreement. In those discussions, Kennedy spoke about advising Trump in a second term on health and medical issues.
The Post attempts to square this circle through Kennedy’s encouragement of engagement among all the candidates in a recent interview.
At the moment, Kennedy says he is continuing to campaign with the expectation that he will defeat both Trump and Harris, making regular interview appearances, releasing an “America Strong” plan for bipartisan governance and planning upcoming rallies in states such as Arizona and Nebraska. But he has also left open the possibility of bowing out of the race if he finds another way to bring about the change he seeks in the country, his advisers say.
“From the beginning of this campaign, we were saying people should be talking to each other,” Kennedy said Wednesday in an interview. “That is the only way of unifying the country.”
Kennedy said he hopes Harris reconsiders his offer of a meeting. “I think it is a strategic mistake for them. That’s my perspective,” Kennedy said. “I think they ought to be looking at every opportunity. I think it is going to be a very close race.”
It is instructive to also note that Kennedy denies having any contact with the Democratic Party itself since declaring himself to be an independent.
Kennedy said Wednesday that he had not had any contact with the Democratic Party since launching his campaign. The Democratic National Committee has launched an aggressive legal and political effort to diminish the appeal of Kennedy and other third-party contenders.
“The only contact I have with the DNC is them suing me through intermediaries,” Kennedy said.
It is difficult to see how Kennedy would be able to be promised a position within a Kamala Harris Administration if the Democratic Party as a whole does not welcome him back into the Democratic fold.
For its part, the Democratic Party has been doing its very best to kneecap Kennedy’s campaign, taking a page from the “lawfare” strategy guide they have been using against Donald Trump with courtroom wranglings to deny Kennedy ballot access in several states.
Judge Christina Ryba ruled that Kennedy's claim of a New York address as his "place of residence" was a "false statement," concluding that it was evident he had no plans to move back to the Empire State and said he only listed the location for political gain. Ryba's ruling is expected to be appealed by the Aug. 15 deadline. If her ruling is upheld, it would bar Kennedy from the New York ballot and potentially spark challenges in other states where he used a New York suburban address to collect signatures.
As I noted the other day, this is a curious sort of ruling by Judge Ryba, as state residency is not among the Constitutional requirements for a Presidential candidate.
Nor is the Washington Post alone in playing up Kennedy’s presumed opportunism. Quasi-independent journalist Simon Ateba of Today News Africa played up the Post Article in a tweet soliciting commentary from his “X” followers.
I leave it to readers to decide if Ateba is tilting his presentation fairly or unfairly.
My observation is that if Kennedy is indeed prepared to endorse Kamala Harris he would be turning his back on a large swath of his own base. Kamala Harris is hardly a paragon of Constitutional governance, as her own record just as Vice President (and presumptive “co-President” if the branding proffered by the White House of a “Biden-Harris Admnistration” is to be taken seriously) demonstrates.
The Kamala Harris record is not a record of one prepared to embrace the idealism of Camelot or the legacy of Dr. King. Her record aligns more with Goebbels and Trotsky than with either John or Robert Kennedy.
Is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., truly willing to endorse a candidate whose record includes not only the facilitation of human trafficking—and the trafficking of minors—but also the use of DHS and TSA as Stasi-like tools of government harassment and intimidation of presumed political opponents and dissident voices?
Can Kennedy plausibly ignore the rank authoritarianism of such a record?
Can Kennedy plausibly trust a political party that has so cavalierly sought to deny him his rights and the equal protection of this nation’s laws?
Is Robert F. Kennedy looking for an honorable means to shut down his admittedly quixotic independent campaign and call it quits, even as he continues to pledge to his supporters that he will be on all 50 state ballots come election time?
This is the credulity the Washington Post asks of us, that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is willing to throw his campaign aside in return for a seat at the Kamala Harris table. This we are asked to believe, that Kennedy will set aside his platform and his convictions for perquisite and privilege.
Credulity is not something I am willing to extend towards the Washington Post. I remain skeptical, especially of the Washington Post.
Bobby Kennedy is out of money and stopped holding campaign events more than a month ago. His vice president candidate Nicole Shanahan has not campaigned for even months more, and seems unlikely to give him any more money. His polling numbers have dropped steadily.
For all the impact Bobby Kennedy will make he might as well not have run at all. He tarnished his reputation more than he burnished it. Unless he can make a deal with Donald Trump or Kamala Harris, so that's why he is sending out feelers to them.
The New York court's decision to reject his nominating petition is likely to stand. When Bobby Kennedy circulated his petition to get the required signatures in New York, he listed the address of a friend’s home in New York as his “place of residence”. He didn't have to list a New York address, but chose to.
The judge ruled that listing that address as his place of residence was a false statement, and that it possibly deceived those who signed the petition into thinking he lived in New York rather than California. The judge invalidated the nominating petition due to the fact that it contained a false statement -- where Bobby Kennedy actually resides was not the problem. The false statement was.
RFK Jr. the Elite including the WAPO are liars.
VP Harris’s Democratic Party would be unrecognizable to my father and uncle and I cannot reconcile it with my values. The Democratic Party of RFK and JFK was the party of civil liberties and free speech. VP Harris‘s is the party of censorship, lockdowns, and medical coercion.
Kennedy Democrats were anti-war. Kamala‘s is riddled with neocon warmongers.
The RFK/JFK dems were allies of Main Street, cops, firefighters, and working people. VP Harris’s is the Party of Big Tech, Big Pharma and Wall Street.
My dad and uncle’s party was the champion of voting rights and fair elections. VP Harris’s is the party of lawfare, disenfranchisement, and the coronation of its candidates by corporate donors and party elites.