Robert Kennedy Jr. announces presidential run as an independent candidate

On Monday, Robert Kennedy Jr. announced that he would run as an independent in the 2024 presidential campaign. It’s giving Kanye West 2.0 – a Republican stooge attempting to ratf–k the election by steering Democratic voters away from the Democratic candidate. Junior’s main backers, for months now, are all Republican operatives. Junior’s whole platform is a Republican fever dream of anti-vaxx, anti-science and anti-abortion stances. He fully supports a federal abortion ban (the government needs to control women’s bodies!) but he rejects every vaccine mandate (the government has no right to dictate public health issues!).

In a move that could alter the dynamics of the 2024 election, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on Monday that he would continue his presidential run as an independent candidate, ending his long-shot pursuit of the Democratic nomination against an incumbent president.

Speaking to a crowd of supporters outside the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Mr. Kennedy, a leading vaccine skeptic and purveyor of conspiracy theories, said he represented “a populist movement that defies left-right division.”

“The Democrats are frightened that I’m going to spoil the election for President Biden, and the Republicans are frightened that I’m going to spoil it for Trump,” he said. “The truth is, they’re both right. My intention is to spoil it for both of them.”

In a 45-minute speech on Monday, Mr. Kennedy described encounters across America with people he called the “ranks of the dispossessed,” interspersed with angry barbs about “the surveillance state” and the “tyranny of corruption.” He quoted the Old Testament, John Adams, Martin Luther King Jr., Tennyson and his own father.

But Mr. Kennedy, the scion of a liberal political dynasty, has alienated his own family members and many Democrats with his promotion of conspiracy theories, his rejection of scientific orthodoxies and his embrace of far-right political figures.

“Bobby might share the same name as our father, but he does not share the same values, vision or judgment,” four of Mr. Kennedy’s siblings — Rory Kennedy, Kerry Kennedy, Joseph P. Kennedy II and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend — said in a statement on Monday. “We denounce his candidacy and believe it to be perilous for our country.”

[From The NY Times]

For several days now, there’s been some consistent reporting on Donald Trump’s growing concerns about Junior’s candidacy. I have no idea if Trump is spending the money for internal polling, but I would assume that someone has some data suggesting that, thirteen months out from the presidential election, Kennedy would pull more votes away from Trump than Biden. It will be interesting to see if Trump goes after Kennedy, just as it will be interesting to see if Junior’s Republican backers/handlers/ratf–kers begin to rein him in so he can position himself as more of a Democratic spoiler. The only reason he’s running as an independent is because the Dems didn’t take his bait – he has been a non-factor for months, despite the media trying to hype Kennedy as some major threat to President Biden.

Also: Kennedy’s wife Cheryl Hines introduced him at his big announcement. So… she’s involved. She was trying to pretend like she didn’t have anything to do with her husband’s politics, but she got that Republican-wife blowout and she’s never going back.

Cheryl Hines doing the introduction for RFK Jr. pic.twitter.com/IDSQf5llwv

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 9, 2023

RFK Jr’s campaign is off to a great start

*cue Curb music* pic.twitter.com/JMyKF3pvNA

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 9, 2023

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Avalon Red.