Technically, this should not really be a news story. It’s not as if the Kennedy family had electoral college votes to parcel out to the candidate of their choosing. And yet the very notion that a Kennedy endorsing an incumbent Democrat President is news is enough to give one give one pause. This show of force, in Philadelphia today, is noteworthy in that it means that one of the most prominent political families in American history is publicly turning its back on one of tis own. Further, Axios, asking out loud why such an endorsement matters, concludes: “It's a public display of support that reveals a weakness Democrats privately acknowledge: Biden is likely more at risk from Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s third-party challenge than former President Trump is.”
And so, here we are — in the hour of the wolf. The current President, a fundamentally decent man, up against a would-be autocrat and a racist thug. Former Congressman Joe Kennedy, III will be on hand at the endorsement. He is, we cannot fail to note, Special Envoy to Northern Ireland in Biden’s administration. Also Ambassador Caroline Bouvier Kennedy, daughter to the alliterative Jack and Jackie, has distinguished herself as US Ambassador to Japan (under Obama) and now, Australia (under Biden), will be on hand.
The question arises — Why does the Kennedy name even still matter? Is the Democratic party not serious about the Progressive principle of not just equality, but the lessening of inequality? I cannot divine why, exactly, the political privilege of Kennedy name persists, but it does. And beyond American borders, as well. Perhaps the Kennedy name — and lore — has now been embroidered into the very fabric of American soft power itself. When Carolina Bouvier Kennedy was offered the job as then-President Obama’s Ambassador to Japan, there was some pushback. Japan was, at the time, the world’s third-largest economy and Kennedy had no experience in government or business. But eventually the pushback subsided. And, surprisingly, it helped Kennedy in her diplomatic role. “My strongest qualifications were that I was close to the president, and that I had a well-known name,” the Ambassador told The Harvard Gazette in 2018. “But it turned out that those are the qualities that the Japanese most valued.” The 1947 Constitution of Japan, which abolished the hereditary titles of the kazoku notwithstanding ...
Which hereditary American lords, you ask, will be “On Board” today? From Nicholas Nehamas of the NYTimes:
Among the relatives of Mr. Kennedy expected to back Mr. Biden are his siblings Joseph, Kerry, Rory, Kathleen, Maxwell and Christopher. The Biden campaign released a list of 15 Kennedys set to appear at the rally, but it said other family members would endorse the president as well. Kerry Kennedy will introduce Mr. Biden at the rally, the campaign said, and Joe Kennedy III, Mr. Kennedy’s nephew and a former Democratic congressman from Massachusetts, will do so at a second event.
… A person familiar with the planning, who insisted on anonymity, said that Kennedy family members had approached the Biden team and requested a joint event for the endorsements.
And the family has telegraphed its intentions: Last month, members visited Mr. Biden at the White House for St. Patrick’s Day, sharing a photo of him with a large group of them.
This also matters, on the practical side, because the election will be close, as it was in 2020. Three states are often mentioned here as particularly important to look at in the context of this Kennedy candidacy. I will relay here the words of NPR's Domenico Montanaro, who famously put it, "just 44,000 votes in Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin separated Biden and Trump from a tie in the Electoral College." Elaine Kamarck and Elizabeth Smith at Brookings break the race down, thus:
Conventional wisdom has that because of his famous name and his environmental work, he will take votes from Biden.
… Although he is doing better in the polls than all the other third-party candidates, he seems unlikely to be a spoiler in the three heavily Democratic states of California, Delaware, and Hawaii. Nor does he seem likely to be a spoiler in the heavily Republican state of Mississippi. But North Carolina is a state that Democrats have won in the past and is likely to be very close … Note that in the eight states where the Kennedy campaign claims to have achieved ballot access, the total is only 51 electoral college votes. And, in addition to North Carolina, the only other state in this group that is a swing state is New Hampshire. Nonetheless, if Kennedy costs Biden New Hampshire’s four electoral college votes and North Carolina’s 16 electoral college votes, these two states could decide the election … In August, the filing deadlines will pass for Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvania. Every time Kennedy gets on a ballot in a swing state, he comes closer and closer to becoming a spoiler in 2024, and so far, his organization has shown the ability to raise money and meet filing deadlines.
Two things really stand out here that make me take notice. California, Delaware and Hawaii don’t bother me. Neither does North Carolina, which Trump won in 2016 and 2020 and will probably win pretty handily in 2024, despite its violet political hue statewide. Those, essentially, are non-issues. But the very the mention of swing-state New Hampshire, which shares media markets with Massachusetts, where the Kennedy’s have virtually one-hundred percent name recognition, should freeze the blood of any Democrat. It’s four electoral college votes matter. Further, RFK Jr. announced that he has qualified to be on the ballot in Michigan, another crucial state with 15 electoral college votes, that should jar the equilibrium. It might also explain why the President spent some time in New Hampshire last month.
Kennedy qualified for the ballot in New Hampshire in January and I am actually a little bit surprised that the Kennedy endorsement is taking place in Philadelphia and not the Granite State. Another event that speaks to the timing of the Kennedy family endorsement are that the ballot deadlines for Arizona and Georgia — two pivotal swing states — is in August. So, the sooner the better in nipping the potential RFK Jr problem in the bud as soon as possible. Though the political calculations of Philadelphia still, quite frankly, elude me.
Clearly, the Biden campaign is taking the electoral math seriously. “Two of the last three GOP presidential victories — President Bush in 2000 and Trump in 2016 — can partly be explained by the appeal of third-party candidates to disaffected voters,” Alex Thompson and Hans Nichols write for Axios. It is another dimension of an unfolding race that BidenWorld has to account for, namely — the accounting for a third and fourth and possibly even a fifth candidacy eating into its projections for victory.
Finally, I cannot help but wonder who the brilliant writer Christina Oxenberg endorses in this Presidential race. Oxenberg, who generally stays out of politics, has always left open the question as to whether or not she is — in addition to being a Serbian royal — a Kennedy. “My mom had an affair with J.F.K. when she got pregnant with me, and everybody knew about it,” she explained to Town & Country’s Ben Widdicombe. “It was very public, and she did it to poke her finger in the eye of (her then-husband), who was screwing around. As a princess she was able to outdo him and get the president.” According to Robert F Kennedy Jr, Christina has “one of the most lethal wits in the western world.”
I wonder what her wonderful mind makes of all of this.
“Just a few days after South Carolina’s late February primary, Trump took 72% of the two-candidate vote in Michigan. He ran best in northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula, both areas that used to be competitive but are now solidly red. Though Trump beat his statewide share in Wayne County (Detroit), the state’s largest Democratic-voting county in general elections, he was several points under his statewide share in both suburban Oakland and collegiate Washtenaw (University of Michigan) counties. In past editions, we have pointed to Democratic trends in western Michigan as a reason why Biden may retain an edge in the state. Trump was below his statewide share in several counties in the Grand Rapids area, as well as some near the state’s touristy northwestern ‘Cherry Coast.’” (J. Miles Coleman/CenterforPolitics)
“New Yorkers did not elect the most progressive, diverse Democratic supermajority in Council history to rubber stamp a return to the Giuliani era,’ progressive Council Member Tiffany Cabán, a lawyer, told POLITICO in a statement. ‘Our city’s top lawyer should be a principled champion of justice, not a far-right wing pal of sleazy crooks like Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie, and billionaire real estate magnates. No way in hell I vote to confirm Randy Mastro.’ He would replace Corporation Counsel Sylvia Hinds-Radix, who plans to step down. Mastro first gained political notoriety as a deputy mayor under the Republican Giuliani. And that’s just one line in his resume raising eyebrows of the overwhelmingly Democratic, largely progressive City Council … Mastro worked for Republican former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on the ‘Bridgegate’ scandal, oil giant Chevron and an Upper West Side group that tried to get homeless New Yorkers out of the Lucerne Hotel amid the Covid pandemic.” (Jeff Coltin/Politico)
“Having attacked Syria numerous times without Syrian retaliation, the Israelis thought that the same thing would happen here. Having clandestinely assassinated Iranian scientists without making a claim of responsibility, they were able to get away with it. But the brazen act of violating the 1961 Vienna Convention, which makes it a war crime to attack a diplomatic mission, was one act that Iranians could not take quietly. Israel has prided itself on a high level of deterrence with its neighbors and has used its military (largely the Air Force) dominance to declare its superiority and hegemony in the area. Iran too has similar ambitions, although usually it acts via proxies like Hezbollah. But the April 1 attack was too obvious and impossible to ignore or to allow to be forgotten. The Iranians decided that they needed to respond, and they needed to respond from Iranian territory since the attack on their diplomatic mission was an attack on sovereign Iranian territory (albeit in Syria). Iranians, though, didn’t want to start a war—rather, they wanted to draw a marker in the sand. They wanted to make sure that the Israelis understood that they had crossed a red line and that a response would take place. To ensure that the attack didn’t turn into a vicious cycle, they telegrammed via Arab countries to the United States the date and time that they would attack. And their attack was, according to an official Iranian statement, a ‘limited’ attack.”(Daoud Kuttab/TNR)