Posted on 06/06/2023 10:30:01 AM PDT by Signalman
BIDEN’S RFK DILEMMA — After years on the fringes, ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR. is suddenly knocking on the door of mainstream relevance — and all it took was mounting a longshot presidential campaign.
Just in the last few days, Kennedy won a surprise endorsement from Twitter co-founder JACK DORSEY, was the subject of a deep dive by WaPo’s Michael Scherer into his long history of conspiratorial rhetoric, and spent two hours on Twitter Spaces with ELON MUSK and such ideological fellow-travelers as isolationist former Rep. TULSI GABBARD (D-Hawaii) and pro surfer-slash-vaccine skeptic KELLY SLATER.
The NYT wrapped up the Twitter event thusly: “[Kennedy] said he planned to travel to the Mexican border this week to ‘try to formulate policies that will seal the border permanently,’ called for the federal government to consider the war in Ukraine from the perspective of Russians and said pharmaceutical drugs were responsible for the rise of mass shootings in America.”
Needless to say, these views are out of step with the vast majority of the party whose nomination he’s ostensibly seeking. Supermajorities of Democratic voters support a national assault weapons ban, received the Covid-19 vaccine, and express confidence in the electoral process. Kennedy is on the opposite side of all of these issues.
And, yet, he’s constantly polling in the double digits against Biden. The latest CNN poll, taken less than three weeks ago, has him at 20 percent. Now, theories abound as to why this is happening:
Most obviously, the Kennedy name still means something in Democratic politics — quite a lot, according to the available evidence. For instance, ahead of the 2017 Senate special election in Alabama, one ROBERT KENNEDY JR. garnered 49 percent support among Democrats surveyed in one early poll. The catch is … he has no relation to the Kennedy political dynasty. Almost as obviously, voters with qualms about a second Biden term need to park their support somewhere. Poll after poll finds a sizable minority of Democrats worried about the 80-year-old incumbent’s age and what that portends, so their eyes are looking elsewhere. There’s also a phenomenon among Democrats that even with a young popular president (cough, BARACK OBAMA, cough), eyes can wander early on. In a September 2010 Gallup poll, for instance, then-Secretary of State HILLARY CLINTON pulled in 37 percent of support while Obama pulled in 52 percent. Let’s be real: Kennedy poses no direct danger to Biden’s nomination, nor does any other Democrat for the foreseeable future. As is customary with a sitting president, the party apparatus has already chosen its man. There will be no debates; Kennedy will see no institutional support.
What he is, though, is an annoyance for Biden — and a potentially dangerous one. Besides using his legendary name and a national campaign megaphone to espouse fringe views, his outsize polling performance has served as a routine reminder of Biden’s vulnerabilities among his base.
Yet, for now, Biden world’s plan is to ignore him. The overwhelming sense inside the campaign and White House orbits is that any other posture would elevate him from a gadfly with a good name to a genuine contender.
They are counting on reporters and other Democrats to do the work of informing voters about Kennedy’s well-established views. Once that happens, as one Democratic strategist put it to us, they will “realize he’s running in the wrong party.” (This person, like others who spoke about Kennedy, did so on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about strategy.)
“Even the slightest press scrutiny is his biggest problem,” one Biden 2020 alum put it last night: “When Democrats see a candidate is anti-vaccination, anti-assault weapons ban, and a quasi 2020 election denier, their first thought is that this person must be a MAGA Republican.”
It’s a careful strategy that will seem frustratingly familiar to Biden’s Democratic critics, who have consistently wanted a more aggressive posture out of his White House and his campaign. But don’t expect a lot of attention to be paid to the hand-wringing — on RFK Jr. or most anything else.
One former Biden White House official and campaign aide whom Playbook spoke with last night agreed that ignoring Kennedy is probably the right move. But the person added that ignoring him doesn’t mean that you don’t keep an eye on him.
“It is a distraction, no doubt,” the person said. “And some could say just ignore it, which is how I would feel about it. At the same time, you’ve got to make sure that somebody is paying attention to it and pushing back.”
Talk to Hillary’s cleaners?
Article starts out wrong. RFK is relevant because the establishment and the establishment media have repeatedly lied.
He’ll get “Bernie-ed” (if he’s lucky).
Trust me Kennedy will be getting more support than these people think. They call him “fringe” but that’s bs. After watching his video with Jordan Peterson I’d have to say he’s a pretty smart guy with a lot of commonsense. He’s the Dem version of Trump. I’d love to see a Kennedy vs Trump race. Kennedy just needs more exposure.
The DNC will give him the Bernie treatment.
But it's good that he's out there waking people up to the problems of our totally corrupt, criminal government.
He's a huge threat to Biden, that's why the media/dems are going after him.
Biden’s skating on thin ice, with even a majority of Dems not wanting him to run. Add that to his refusing to debate and trying to sideline IA and NH, and you get a lot of pent up resentment, especially in those two states. Those states’ voters could take it out on Biden by voting for RFK, JR and dropping a cannon ball on Biden’s thin ice.
Thinking about a little operation chaos?
“The DNC has already said there will be no Democrat primary debates.”
A cable network could invite the candidates to a program informally discuss the issues of importance to Americans.
Dementia tends to be progressive. Biden is going to have to be replaced.
I have considered the same thing here in NH.
With NH law requiring 1st in the nation primary as law. Biden may not be even on the NH Democratic Primary in January of 2024. So, the only way Dems in NH may be able to vote for him is as a write in.
There’s no chance I’d ever vote for him, but I truly respect Kennedy simply for his stance on the plandemic. His book on Fauci is stellar.
I haven’t respected a democrat like I respect him in decades.
Seriously I just can’t imagine they will run Biden. Maybe they will bring in Michelle Obama or somebody at the last minute.
Kennedy mentioned in that interview that his internal polling shows he has huge support among independents. He thinks the rest of the Dems will fall inline once they realize he’s the only Dem who has a shot at beating Trump. He also has some support among Republican women who don’t particularly like Trump. It would be an epic matchup between him and Trump. Quite honestly I would be comfortable with either one of them in the White House. He’s the ONLY Dem I could tolerate.
Not Michelle, but someone else.
> Dementia tends to be progressive. Biden is going to have to be replaced. <
The Deep State chose Biden in 2020 for two reasons: He was pliable and he had solid name recognition.
Will the Deep State need both of those qualities in 2024? If so, my money is on Michelle Obama. She’d be just as much a figurehead as Biden. And better at debates (anyone would).
“But wouldn’t we be far better off if RFK was the democrat we needed to beat?”
The fact we ended up with Hillary, Bill, Jimmy, Barak and now Joe tells me you want every candidate on both tickets to be as good as possible. Because they just might end up in office. Of course, maybe each of the named really were the best the Democrats had at the time. That is a frightening thought.
Yeah Kennedy is an old school Dem. It’s going to be interesting to see what kind of support he gets from the left.
Never happen.
There is little downside for the Democrats picking Michelle Obama. She’s got name recognition. Plus she’s a woman and a minority. That alone will get out the vote. Oh, and better not criticize her in any way, mainstream media. That would be racist.
The only problem is that Michelle is lazy. Well, okay. Just tell her that she’ll be a figurehead. Just sign a few papers, and smile for the camera. The Deep State will do the rest. Just like now.
Don’t get me wrong. Michelle will get the call only if the GOP seems to be surging, and extreme measures are needed. Otherwise, any old Democrat dunce will do.
Problem? Uhh, wut?
Oh, a non commie trash calling himself a Democrat? Got it. Yeah, that is a problem.
Uhh, how about he admits that he still yearns for slavery like all the rest? Will that do?
She has no life experience at anything, that's a tough sell to be commander in chief of the worlds most powerful military and economy. She'd lose huge.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.