Kennedy WILL make independent run

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who announced his challenge to President Joe Biden, has ended all speculation about an independent run. He will run for President independently of either major Party, as he hinted he might on September 25.

Kennedy to announce in mid-October

Children’s Health Defense’ newsletter alerted readers yesterday afternoon (September 29) to a story in Mediaite that leaked from Kennedy’s campaign. At 2:40 p.m. EDT, Mediaite, citing a tip from a “Kennedy campaign insider,” reported a campaign plan that sounds plausible. First, the Kennedy campaign will run “attack ads” against the Democratic National Committee “to pave the way.” The source accused the DNC of “changing the rules to exclude [Kennedy’s] candidacy.” Then, according to the alleged plan, he will announce his independent run on October 9 at an event in Philadelphia.

CHD did not speculate on whether more Democrats than Republicans would defect from their respective standard bearers to support Kennedy. But Mediaite did, and suggested his candidacy would hurt Trump more than Biden. They base that mainly on expressed opinions of the candidate by Democratic voters surveyed in New Hampshire. Jim Geraghty of National Review, back in June, offered his own scathing opinion of the candidate. Still, Geraghty had a link to a RealClearPolitics monitor of polling for the Democratic nomination. The nephew of a President and son of a Senator (both assassinated) currently scores 14.9 percent support on average. His support in individual polls varies from 7 percent (Yahoo! News) to 25 percent (Rasmussen Reports). His RCP average fell to a low of 11.3 percent on September 13, and it has been rising ever since.

In July, Geraghty said Biden would beat Kennedy easily in New Hampshire even as a write-in candidate.

Signature issues

Geraghty also cited the signature issue of the Kennedy campaign: opposition to the COVID vaccines. He also cited a September 6 Pew poll showing that Democrats tend to like the vaccine and Republicans tend not. Therefore, Geraghty concludes, Kennedy cannot look for support from disaffected Democrats, because they wouldn’t disaffect over the vaccine.

Mediaite, based on that, expresses near-absolute confidence that the rogue Democrat – perhaps soon to be ex-Democrat – would hurt Trump more than Biden. But they also linked to this New York Times September 23 piece describing speculation about him running as a Libertarian. The Times said flatly that this kind of prospect has Democrats worried. Mediaite seems bent on telling Democrats not to worry, and that Republicans should worry.

About the image

“Robert F. Kennedy Jr.” by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 .