The Kennedy independent thing
Robert Kennedy Jr to run as independent, could complicate Trump, Biden 2024 contest
I'm always amused by mainstream media headlines. "Could complicate Trump, Biden 2024 contest," the headline writer (who is probably not the article writer) said. They all think it's going to be Trump versus Biden, and they position the polls to ask the voters as much. Meanwhile, the shadow government attempts to prosecute Trump, and the Democrats squirm while rumors swirl that a lot of the insiders want to replace Biden with Gavin Newsom. I guess Biden can still read from a TelePrompTer okay, for now. In a year, maybe not.
I guess the Reuters article is not made-up news. The Guardian is also carrying something of the sort. Both the Reuters and the Guardian pieces reference a piece in Mediaite. This is the first time I've heard of this website. The piece in Mediaite references a "text reviewed by Mediaite.' It also says: "“Bobby feels that the DNC is changing the rules to exclude his candidacy so an independent run is the only way to go,” a Kennedy campaign insider told Mediaite." So that's what we've got.
The Mediaite article says pointlessly that "it’s unclear whether such a run would hurt the current president more than the Republican nominee." The likelihood is actually that the participation of outsider candidates in elections INCREASES the vote totals for the mainstream candidates because the outsiders' presence increases overall popular interest in voting. "Third parties" are thus in the interests of the vast majority of the American public.
RFK Jr. will now have to choose a ballot access strategy. Perhaps getting on the ballot as an independent via petition will further energize his campaign. It would also be nice if the Libertarian Party were to pick him up, but maybe the Libertarian Party has ideological qualifications for their candidates which RFK Jr. does not meet. Who knows? We'll see.
It's good that this comes out. RFK Jr. no longer appears to be wasting time with the Democrats. I saw a couple of them, Democrats, on Facebook recently, repeating the State Department's lies about Ukraine. Sheesh.
Comments
Meanwhile, RBN plays with David Corn
like cats with toys:
Here's the link to the Corn polemic: https://link.motherjones.com/public/32752851
It's the same old argument: the Establishment candidate deserves your vote, while at the same time has no obligation to appeal to the vast sea of nonvoters, omigod Trump has authoritarian plans! (which he never executed in all of the four years he inhabited the White House), "progressives" (the folks they called "neoconservatives" back in the Eighties) are going to save the day by voting for Biden/ Clinton Two/ Obama/ Kerry/ Gore/ Clinton One/ Dukakis, this is the most important election of our time, and so on. I guess it's an echo of the James Bickerton piece about RFK Jr. cited in Lookout's post of today.
"the Democratic Party is not 'left'." -- Sabrina Salvati
After a fashion
the hype line invariably swirls around to "the most important election evah"
which seems like just a cover to explain the billions on advertising and the
bilking of small time donors. If it is so damn important, why do the parties
run the worst possible candidates? The imagined fight for demo crazy is
not fought in the voting booths.
They don't care.
They get paid regardless of who wins. Trump was another lousy President, to be sure, but Trump Derangement Syndrome is a scam.
"the Democratic Party is not 'left'." -- Sabrina Salvati
It appears
to be happening, just waiting for it to be made official. Kennedy's CHD org carried the Mediaite story a few days ago, which immediately gave the story cred, and yesterday I got an email asking me to come to Philly on Oct 9 for an RFK Jr Special Announcement event. A Kennedy friend in the podcast world believes the story is accurate.
One news item said in recent days Kennedy had approached the Libertarian Party, but the outcome is unclear.
If he can get on the ballot in enough states, he could definitely make it a 3-way contest, and exceed the substantial Perot vote in 92. In that scenario, the other 3d party efforts such as West's will be looking at an even smaller slice of the electorate, and become nearly irrelevant. West really should endorse RFK Jr, maybe become an advisor to his campaign.
One of the reasons I collect evidence --
-- for a forthcoming Republican victory next year is that it appears that the primary Democratic Party tactic for "promoting Biden" is to rile up Trump Derangement Syndrome among the party faithful. Since their candidate is going to lose, I reason, Democrats might look at other candidates to see if there's something there they actually believe in.
Of course, if Joe Biden is their hero, it's hard to say that they believe in anything at all unless they stand to benefit financially from a Biden victory. I suppose there are beneficiaries from the Inflation Reduction Act, but I doubt they're a majority of the population. Poverty increased by 60% in 2022, and wages have generally failed to keep up with inflation.
In that regard, it stands to reason that at this point in the election run-up we benefit from more, and not fewer, candidates. The more voices claiming to have solutions to the current dilemma, the richer the debate will be. In this regard the Democrats dislike not just competition, but also debate, not to mention freedom of speech or an admission that there's any sort of current dilemma.
"the Democratic Party is not 'left'." -- Sabrina Salvati
If RFK Jr wants to have a real impact on the election
he'll have to do better than Perot. Perot's support was so widely scattered that he did not earn one single electoral vote - not even in Nebraska. (Nowadays Maine offers similar opportunities, which it didn't back then.)
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
Ross Perot wasn't in it to win in 1992.
Ross Perot was doing it to make George H. W. a one-termer. And it worked!
"the Democratic Party is not 'left'." -- Sabrina Salvati
@Cassiodorus interested in your
interested in your evidence.
Why do you think Ross Perot dropped out in July?
And then re-entered in October?
Perhaps it would have been more effective to stay in the race all the way through?
Well, it would have, if his aim had been to win the election. I don't think it was.
https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2013/09/10/exclusi...
"the Democratic Party is not 'left'." -- Sabrina Salvati
@Cassiodorus like everyone
like everyone else, I was led to believe that compromising pictures and information regarding his daughter were threatened with release. I have never heard a differing explanation. What this did to his chances became apparent. Up until then, he had something going. Not my candidate, but he was in a good position until he showed fear.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-10-26-mn-761-story.html
@Cassiodorus so disliking GHWB
so disliking GHWB means he wasnt serious? I must be getting senile, because I cant follow that at all. That NAFTA opposition seemed authentic, and that's not a pro-Clinton position.
Pretzel logic
Contortions are best left to flexible minds.
@Cassiodorus why did he run in
why did he run in 1996?
Ed Dowd,
someone with a Wall Street past and a head for figures, seems now to have joined the RFK Jr team on the financial side. Has anyone here read any of his material? I haven't had time to do a good search but he looks decent. [He does have a book out.]
Like many others, including Hedges, Patrick Lawrence, and Macgregor (mostly) and Napolitano and his crew and the people at The Duran, he doesn't wear a tie.
Also, what
in the world is Cornel West doing on the board of a right-leaning education group? That item was the only standout in the otherwise awful neoconlib David Corn piece.
Oooh "right wing"!
Anyone who has talked with Cornel West for a period of time will note that he is in favor of teaching classical philosophy, thus his support for the organization in question. Having been exposed to innumerable undergraduate writers whose idea of "sounding collegiate" is to write at a high level of abstraction, I tend to agree with his bias.
As for "right wing," please note that among anyone in any of NATO's member nations it's totally "right wing" to be against wasting money on Ukraine's "counter-offensives," and "left wing" to be in favor of them. The fact that Ukraine has itself banned all of their left-wing parties is of no consequence. Goading Ukraine into wasting 310,000 lives on pointless attacks upon Russian lines of defense is totally left-wing now. (Here one thinks of all of those nice Canadian left-wingers in their Parliament who applauded an old Waffen-SS partisan.) And, to be sure, it's kewl across the political spectrum in the US to be in favor of the standard non-solutions to the homelessness problem.
"the Democratic Party is not 'left'." -- Sabrina Salvati
yeah, in the red and blue world
either side will accuse the other of being purple
left/right becomes centrist and it all adds up to a
directed distraction to split the populace.
Wingers notwithstanding, most people would prefer
to be at peace with the rulers.
Hey, just
asking as I had never heard of the CLT which West promotes. Per the link in the Corn piece, it appears it's also being championed by Gov DeSantis in FL.
Sounds like we have the old argument of white, male western civ being taught traditionally and exclusively vs the more recent times push by progressive educators to broaden the scope to include non-western source materials and, of course, women's voices. Looks like West has joined up with the traditionalists.
We are at a point today
-- at which college students today care damned little about debates in the humanities because the popular majors are all those officially deemed career applicable. As someone with a degree in the humanities (MA, English, BA Literature), I have to imagine that any justification for the collegiate humanities is better than none.
As for the Classical philosophers, you have (for instance) Plato, who thought that what was real about the world were forms or ideas, and you have (for instance) Democritus, who thought that the world was composed of atoms. Now, I suppose you could discuss whether or not the world was composed of ideas or atoms without mentioning Plato or Democritus, if you were doing philosophy on that level. But why would you want to? And is there some politically-correct equivalent to those philosophies you'd want to discuss instead?
"the Democratic Party is not 'left'." -- Sabrina Salvati
Kennedy as an independent
might now be able to raise money from folks who would not, nohow, give a dime to anyone connected to the Democratic Party. I might see if I can squeeze something out if he does go independent.
He has claimed to have offices and organization in all 50 states, so I would imagine those petitions to get on the 2024 ballot are ready to go.
Mary Bennett
At the very least, RFK, JR. appears to be going along
the path that is being forced on him by the DNC.
Do not see how dumping Biden will benefit their brand.
Of course they could have embraced Kennedy to hold
on to their control of executive. But, it may be too late.
It is all about the swag, er, jobs.
DNC apparatchiks know perfectly well that an actual competent, public minded president elect won't offer them diddly. That is the reason the DNC intrigues against anyone, Bernie, RFK, even sensible, capable House candidates who might compromise the grift.
Mary Bennett