RFK Jr can’t seem to decide if he is a real candidate.
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr, is a confusing man and one who has really made me wonder, “Does he even think he is a real candidate?”. The 2024 general election is almost certainly going to be a rematch between two men who have each set records for becoming the oldest person elected president and it is a rematch that absolutely nobody wants. 64% of democrats and 51% of republicans say they want a new candidate according to a recent NYT/Sienna college poll. So that has led many to think, what about other options, third parties, independents etc. Well currently the leading candidate in that regard is the infamous Robert F. Kennedy Jr who began running as a centrist democrat, criticising the Biden administration, then switched, “declaring his independence”, in October 2023, to an independent candidate for president.
At times he appears to be a genuine, serious candidate running a real campaign for the Whitehouse (as opposed to the Kanye Wests of the world). His super PAC ran a superbowl ad, he has had a large financial backing from once more Trump oriented Republican Donors like Timothy Mellon and Steve Kirsch and has received over 22 million dollars, for context Biden and Trump’s receipts stand at around 120 million and 80 million respectively, somewhat dwarfing Kennedy’s more modest funds. He also sits at a steady 15% on nationwide polls, has great name recognition and is facing off against possibly the two most unliked candidates in American history. He takes centrist, but left wing leaning, positions on a range of issues. He runs on the slogan “Heal the divide”, hoping to reduce the partisan split and aiming to make the government more honest, two ideas which have quite universal ideological support.
However he has come under fire for promoting HIV/AIDS denialism, he has often promoted false links between vaccines and autism, he has suggested that a chemical called atrazine causes gender dysphoria and claims the CIA is trying to kill him while also suggesting they were involved in his father and uncle’s infamous assassinations. But worst of all is that he is considering New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers to be his vice presidential nominee. Rodgers, like Kennedy, has frequently come under fire for promoting vaccine-autism links, Rodgers has also claimed that ivermectin is beneficial in treating the coronavirus and if that wasn’t enough to show you how crazy he is, he believes the Sandy Hook massacre and 9/11 were inside jobs. Rodgers is also still playing football, he is at the end of his career but is still expected to be playing again in New York this August and the NFL season lasts from the summer through January, overlapping completely with the mid/end of the presidential election cycle and with when president-elects are sworn in. Also Aaron Rodgers has zero political or military experience, he is in a way, even less experienced than our least experienced president: Donald Trump. The only thing Rodgers has going in his favour is name recognition, every semi-avid football fan will know his name, but many not even for the right reason, he became infamous for refusing to get the coronavirus vaccine during the pandemic and has been in the news lately for making false claims about Jeffrey Epstein. So why would Kennedy, if he is running a real presidential campaign even consider this man for vice president? It could be because it may connect with a unique white rural voter that has been incredibly devoted to Trump or it could be that he isn’t running a real campaign, he’s just gotten lucky so far, he isn’t looking to be president, only in the spotlight.
This brings me to my final point: if this strange campaign spreading misinformation, supposedly meant to “heal the divide” is to win, how do they plan to do it? Kennedy’s best chance is if both Biden and Trump die or perhaps the former dies and the latter’s legal fees catch up to him forcing him to drop out in some form. Kennedy is only 70, an age which in any other election would make him seem senile but in this one pales to Trump’s 77 and Biden’s 81. Usually you wouldn’t expect men that age to live much longer or stay in good physical and mental health for four more years, especially one whose diet consists exclusively of McFlurries and happy meals so it isn’t unreasonable for the Kennedy campaign to hope and pray that death comes knocking sooner rather than later. In such a case he could further build on his conspiracy that the CIA is looking to kill him after they did with his father and uncle to woo enough of both candidate’s base with claims that their candidate was killed by the CIA too and hope that the disarray among democrats and republicans while they scramble to pick a last minute new nominee and file them with the FEC and several states’ electoral boards is enough to keep voters at home or choose the comparatively stable and established Robert F Kennedy Jr. However despite the fact that he is polling around 15% nationwide, according to an Echelon Insights Poll less than 60% of his supporters were able to distinguish between a photo of him and his father. He does have name recognition with most of his family being prominent and active political figures in both history and relatively so in modern day. On the other hand he is only on the ballot in Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, New Hampshire and Hawaii with write-in access in a handful of other states like Pennsylvania and New Jersey. This gets a grand total of only 80 of the 270 electoral votes he would need to reach the presidency, which he only even has access to. The campaign would need to, and seems to, be pushing for ballot access campaigns across the country and hope that the anger against both candidates is enough for him to tempt moderate democrats and republicans away from their respective national parties. However a more possible effect is splitting the vote away from either side of the aisle as right now the states of which he has ballot access are ones which mostly were decided by slim margins in 2020 and if flipped, would have change the outcome hugely.
In conclusion, is RFK Jr running a real campaign? Who’s to say, it doesn’t even seem like he knows, it is however quite likely that he will be a popular candidate in the polls as a protest vote for many and then when November 5th rolls around and strategic voting comes in to play, will win 0 electoral college votes and a sliver of the popular vote to join the likes of Ross Perot, George Wallace and every Libertarian candidate in the graveyard of failed third party presidential campaigns.
