Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. speaks during a campaign event at Independence Mall, in Philadelphia, Pa. on on Oct. 9.Matt Rourke/The Associated Press
In American politics, never underestimate the power of third-party or independent candidates.
Campaigning hard against NAFTA, third-party candidate Ross Perot cost George H.W. Bush the election in 1992. Mr. Perot, a Saturday Night Live favourite with his squirrel haircut, big ears and Texas twang, gave us Bill Clinton.
For the Bush family, poetic justice followed. Another third-party candidate, Ralph Nader, with a paltry 2.7 per cent of the popular vote, handed the 2000 election to Mr. Bush Sr.’s son, George W. – with Nader votes making the difference, the son nosed out Al Gore in the infamous hanging-chad Florida ballot count.
In 2016, third-party candidate Jill Stein got 1.07 per cent of the vote. It may have been enough – no one knows for sure – to cost Hillary Clinton that election, which she unfathomably lost to Donald Trump.
As a next chapter in third-party candidates determining the presidential election outcomes, how about this scenario? Havoc-wreaker Robert F. Kennedy Jr. handing the 2024 election to Mr. Trump, who appears to have gone even more off the rails than before.
The possibility surfaced this week when Mr. Kennedy, the 69-year-old vaccine-hating zealot, dropped his failing bid for the Democratic nomination and instead announced he would run as an independent. That makes him much more “perilous,” to use the word his Kennedy family members chose to describe the situation. The son of the revered Bobby Kennedy has the name recognition, the money and the manic determination to make an impact. He’s in the grip of fringe populism and wild-eyed theories.
From his highlight reel, pick any number. For example, there’s his take on the surge in mass shootings. Don’t blame guns, RFK Jr. says. It’s antidepressants marketed by the pharmaceutical industry that are responsible. “Prior to the introduction of Prozac we had almost none of these events in our country.”
Polls show a majority of Americans want an alternative to Mr. Trump and octogenarian Joe Biden. They also show that RFK Jr. could score around 10 per cent of the vote, easily enough to make him kingmaker. Some of his positions have appeal to the Republicans. He’s a relentless anti-vaxxer, a warrior against the “deep state” in Washington, a neo-isolationist who says the Ukraine war is the “creation of a relentless mentality of foreign domination” by the U.S. It stirs hopes among Democrats that he could steal as many if not more votes from a Trump candidacy than a Biden one.
But it’s probably wishful thinking. In his challenge to Mr. Biden, Fox News gave Mr. Kennedy a lot of exposure and support. As an independent, however, that will dry up quickly. As soon as he announced his change of plans, the Republican National Committee put out a list entitled “23 Reasons to Oppose RFK Jr.”
Mr. Kennedy made his mark as an environmentalist. He supports abortion rights and affirmative action and other strongly progressive policies that appeal to Democrats. He tries to adhere to his Kennedy lineage. In an interview in The Free Press, he said he communes in a daily ritual with his father Bobby and uncle Jack, the former president. “That’s kind of the nature of my meditations. I have a lot of conversations with dead people.” He later explained it was a one-way channel, that the dead family members weren’t actually talking back to him. (If they were, we can only imagine!)
At his campaign announcement in Philadelphia on Monday, he spelled out his intention. “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 Mr. Trump. The truth is, they’re both right. My intention is to spoil it for both of them.”
Kennedy family members were quick to respond, saying “he does not share the same values, vision or judgment” as his father. “Today’s announcement is deeply saddening for us. We denounce his candidacy and believe it to be perilous for our country.” What is obviously needed if we are to be saved from a Trump re-election – imagine how vindictive and tyrannical he would be – is an independent or third-party candidate on the Republican side.
It could still happen. There are so many traditional Republicans disgusted with Trumpism – the party is “stuck on stupid,” says GOP Congressman Mike Lawler – that a breakaway faction could back a well-credentialed independent.
He or she would divide the GOP vote, sending the election, no matter the impact of the Camelot-killing Mr. Kennedy, to the Democrats.