McALLEN, Texas | He announced his candidacy for president in fabled Boston two months ago, and, yes, the news media did make the giddy connection to the so-called Kennedy Mystique. His beloved uncle was president back in the early-1960s until his assassination. His toothy Old Man, Bobby, was attorney general of the United States under JFK and once a candidate for president himself, until he was assassinated.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr has no mystique, none. And not a chance in Hell against President Joe Biden in the Democratic Party primary ahead of the 2024 general election.
The thrice-married Kennedy, a graduate of prestigious Harvard (an environmental lawyer), has so much bad baggage that to wonder why he's running is to waste your time. RFK Jr is angry, however.
He has made a semi-palatable political career out of an anti-vaccine campaign that has, well, been pooh-poohed across the country and across both flanking oceans. So many scientists say RFK Jr is just plain nuts. Evidence he is shown goes nowhere with this guy. He simply believes that Covid-19 never existed, and that, if it did, the U.S. bungled that mess into a bigger mess. RFK Jr hated the mask edicts and the capitalism shutdowns, both government overreaches, he insists.
But there he was in early-April proudly declaring a doomed candidacy. Reported CBS News: [ In a speech in Boston, Kennedy stressed his 30 years as an environmental lawyer and said the country is living in toxic polarization. But he notably did not mention his own anti-vaccine views or group, the Children's Health Defense, which researchers have found is among the most influential spreaders of anti-vaccine misinformation. Facebook and Instagram have both removed the group's accounts for spreading misinformation.
But a large part of his speech was spent blasting the response to coronavirus pandemic and specifically lockdowns, calling them the biggest transfer of wealth in the country and claiming they did not work. He blamed former President Donald Trump for caving to bureaucracy. ]
Kennedy is 69 years of age. His life has been one of struggling to find footing as an adult, as an adult away from the Kennedy name. And, as with his Uncle Ted, there has been tragedy chasing him, specifically during his second marriage.
Mary Richardson Kennedy was that 2nd wife. She hanged herself.
As reports from those days waxed poetic almost, Mary Richardson Kennedy "battled her husband's rumored philandering by turning to alcohol and prescription drugs." Two years after divorcing RFK Jr, a maid found her hanging inside a shed behind her home in Bedford, N.Y., a suburb of The Big Apple. Other reports said Mary Richardson Kennedy feared losing her home after RFK Jr threatened to cut off her divorce financial settlement. RFK Jr remarried. His present wife is 57-year-old Cheryl Hines, an actress and comedian best known for playing the role of Larry David's wife on HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm.
(Mary Richardson Kennedy is shown with then-husband RFK Jr at Uncle Ted Kennedy's funeral in 2009 in photo at right)
RFK Jr has no ground support for his campaign. Political pundits are giving him zero chance against Biden, although a few right-wingers go out on a limb and say he may do well in the early primaries. RFK Jr is articulate and a good public speaker.
But overcoming that well-known reputation of being the force behind the anti-vaccine "misinformation campaign" is a tough mountain to climb. It is something the general population simply will not rally behind.
Worse yet, one of RFK Jr's biggest current backers so far is Donald Trump stooge Steve Bannon, a MAGA Republican.
Uh, yep. Groan and double groan...
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