Robert F Kennedy jnr imposes himself on US presidential race

Families fight. One of the many sideshows of last Sunday night’s Super Bowl, which became the most watched television show in the history of US broadcasting, was the parade of celebrity adverts to fill the gaps between the many stoppages in play. Stuck in the middle of the wink-wink contributions by everyone from Christopher Walken to Ben Affleck was a short, simple election campaign advert for Robert Francis Kennedy jnr, the independent candidate who could yet have a defining influence on the 2024 election.

The advert was literally a blast from the fabled past: a reprise of the jingly, sunny advertisement run by the Mad Men for John F Kennedy’s 1960 election campaign, except the updated version had his nephew’s face superimposed over the images.

The short, retro advert was disconcerting for the generation of Americans old enough to remember the blazing ascent of the original Kennedy-for-president campaign and it certainly disturbed several family members, who quickly expressed their disappointment and disapproval. Bobby Shriver, whose mother was Eunice Kennedy, took to social media to state: ”My cousin’s Super Bowl ad used our uncle’s face – and my Mother’s. She would be appalled by his deadly healthcare views. Respect for science, vaccines & healthcare equity were in her DNA.”

The reservations prompted RFK jnr to issue a hasty apology to his extended family on social media before coverage of the football game had even concluded. He said on X he was “so sorry” if the advertisement upset anyone in his family. He added: “The ad was created and aired by the American Values Super PAC without any involvement or approval from my campaign.”

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“FEC rules prohibit Super PACs from consulting with me or my staff. I love you all. God bless you.”

Here, in plain view, was another chapter in the estrangement between the Kennedys over what his close family members believe to be a renegade run for the presidency at the expense of a surname name wedded to the Democratic tradition.

One of the mementos which president Joe Biden keeps in the oval office is a bust of Kennedy jnr’s father, Robert Francis Kennedy. It was presented to Biden by Kerry Kennedy after he was awarded the RFK Human Rights Ripple of Hope award. RFK is instantly recognisable through the metal; the tousled hair, the quizzical look which evokes a touchstone period in American political life.

Bobby Kennedy jnr was just nine when his uncle, president John F Kennedy, was assassinated in Dallas. He was 14 when his father was shot while campaigning for the Democratic nomination in 1968. In the decades since no American family has been the subject of such enduring public fascination and intrigue.

RFK jnr has, as they say, lived: his youth was defined by extreme privilege and trauma and he has come through a heroin addiction, carving out a career as a robust environmentalist and lawyer before making this late turn towards politics.

For years the prospect of another Kennedy scion emerging from the crowd of bright toothy offspring was a political pastime in America. But the decision by Kennedy jnr to run as a Democratic candidate, announced last April, was greeted with dismay by those closest to him.

At 69 Kennedy jnr is a spiky communicator hampered by a pronounced rasp rather than the famous Bostonian drawl. He lacks the presentational dazzle of his late uncle but carries the blazing directness for which his father was famed. He is in formidable physical shape, as a video showing him tanned and shirtless and ripping through press-ups confirmed. There are times when he looks like an eerie hologram of both his father and uncle had they lived to see their seventh decade. He has enough about him to remind the senior generation of Camelot.

But he came with a manifesto which at once terrified and bewildered the Democratic establishment while rapidly attracting potential voters. He became a leading voice in questioning the safety of Covid vaccines and has argued passionately against the vaccine mandate. He says he wants to seal the US-Mexico border. He has become deeply suspicious of the mainstream media, whom he believes has either warped or reduced all nuance from his views and arguments. He is pro-choice. He is unrelenting in his critique of big pharma. His last in-depth interview, with Joe Hagan of Vanity Fair, went spectacularly awry, with an ostensibly pleasant boat ride in Nantucket turning dark when Kennedy felt his guest had misquoted his views on the vaccine.

“By now it’s clear that Kennedy sees himself as the lone truth teller in a world of lies and deceit, crusading against a vast conspiracy of interlocking powers involving the Biden and Trump administrations, the tech companies, the pharmaceutical industry, the CIA, the FDA, and the mainstream media, who have co-ordinated to stifle the truth of a ‘three-year experiment performed on the American people’,” was the concluding remarks of Fagan in a piece headlined Robert F Kennedy’s Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

When he ended his Democratic bid and declared his intention to run as a third-party independent candidate in October, Kennedy’s sisters, Rory, Kathleen and Kerry, released a statement denouncing their brother’s candidacy, declaring it “perilous for our country” and saying “Bobby may share the same name as our father but he does not share the same values, vision of judgement”.

Recently he has offered a more moderate view of his strident vaccine reservations, arguing in a recent PBS interview that he believes “vaccines should be tested like all other vaccines are tested. They should have placebo controls prior to licensure. It is the only medical product allowed a license without engaging in safety tests.”

But despite the pronounced anguish of his family members Kennedy’s polling numbers are staggering. In January a Gallup poll had him polling at 52 per cent, ahead of both Trump at 42 per cent and Biden at 41 per cent. Sunday night’s advert illuminated Kennedy’s potential to be the wild card in the pack of this election, and drew immediate attention to the donor behind the $7 million advert.

Timothy Mellon, scion to the family banking fortune, donated $15 million to Kennedy’s Superpac. Mellon is also the biggest donor to Donald Trump. On Tuesday a Democratic National Party statement responded that “RFK Jr is nothing more than a Trump stalking horse in this race” as billboards in Michigan paired Kennedy with Trump with the headline: RFK Jr, powered by Maga Trump.

It’s an image and message that would have appeared beyond nonsensical to all American political commentators a little over a decade ago. The fear for Democrats is obvious: that Kennedy’s presence – and the enduring power of the surname alone – will draw enough votes away from Biden to tilt the election in the favour of Trump. Worse, he could leave America with a hung election.

Kennedy’s pathway to winning the presidency, he says, lies in targeting the key battleground states. “And all I need to do is get 34 per cent of the votes and I can walk away with 270 electors. I am at 22 now a year out. Nobody nationally has ever been – except for George Washington, the last independent president – this high in the polls this far out.”

There is some justification to Kennedy’s observation that he has been whitewashed out of this race by the mainstream media: weeks can pass without a mention of his name on the main networks despite his historically high numbers. There has been very little focus on his environmental triumphs. And irrespective of party allegiance, the Kennedy name still resonates, even with those born decades after the 1960s.

As he has often said, he has known Biden his entire life. To establishment Democrats the sight of Bobby Kennedy’s kid now going solo with rapid-fire conspiracy theories and harbouring a grievance against elitism is a bit like Prince Harry lobbying for the throne while calling time on the monarchy. But when Kennedy looks in the mirror he says he sees nothing other than the latest standard bearer for the principles of Kennedy Democratic ideals.

He was at that Democratic convention in 1960, a young boy that July in Los Angeles, when his uncle accepted the nomination and, quoting Churchill over the course of his speech, told the people “if we open a quarrel between the present and past we are in danger of losing the future”.

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