It is common for a politician to invoke family during an election campaign. But things are different when the candidate is Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
When he talks about “my father” – and how no one thought he had a chance of winning his bid for the presidency – he’s talking about the late Robert F. Kennedy, the tragic hope of a younger generation in the election of 1968. When he mentions “my uncle” when discussing the need for negotiations with Russia, that would be the 35th U.S. president, who averted disaster during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Kennedy invoked those spirits repeatedly during a campaign stop Sunday in Holbrook, a town in the middle of suburban Long Island. The venue was a spacious wedding hall, which he filled with a predominantly white, middle-aged crowd. They enjoyed an independent campaign that exuded a libertarian vibe and was shrouded in distrust of corporations and Big Pharma, but also steeped in nostalgia.
“There are people who are interested in him because it’s like going to see Paul McCartney,” said Stephen Vella, 62, a retired police officer who now spends his days painting and writing poetry.
Kennedy has made it to the ballot in two states and is seeking enough signatures for seven more – even though most of his extended family has publicly supported President Joe Biden. One, Jack Schlossberg, a grandson of President Kennedy, accused him last year of “trading in Camelot” and dismissed his candidacy as “an embarrassment.” Their rejection has reinforced the feeling that the recovered heroin addict and self-confessed vaccine skeptic is crazy and self-serving.
Still, a likable candidate blessed with a famous name and campaign talent appears to be causing discontent in the Biden and Donald Trump camps as he is considered an alternative and could be the deciding factor in a close race. According to an average of FiveThirtyEight polls, Kennedy is polling at about 10 percent nationally.
A sign of his relevance is that Trump, after addressing Kennedy early on, now referred to him as a “radical left-wing liberal” and a Democratic “plant” who should spoil his chances. His displeasure may have been sparked by recent polls that showed the independent candidate could get more votes from him than from Biden.
During his Holbrook appearance, Kennedy sought to directly address the doubt that plagues all independent candidates in American politics: that a vote for them is a lost vote.
“The reason I’m behind this. . . “That’s because so many Americans are voting out of fear,” he said, dismissing Biden’s campaign in particular as little more than a warning about the dangers of Trump. “My path to victory is to convince Americans not to vote out of fear.”
But on some hot-button issues like guns and abortion, Democrats and Republicans are broadly similar, Kennedy argued. He brought up a host of problems plaguing America — chronic disease, national debt, a “poisoned” food supply — that he said his opponents weren’t even discussing.
He called for a more polite tone. If either Trump or Biden prevailed, he said, “half the country will be angry and the other half will be complacent.” Someone in the crowd responded with a shout: “Make America merciful again!” Someone else kept shouting: “Ivermectin!” – a reference to the horse dewormer that some were using as an unapproved Covid therapy.
Meanwhile, Kennedy showed some political skill as he tried to weaken his “anti-vaxxer” reputation. “Whatever we do — whatever we did — was wrong,” he said of America’s response to the pandemic, citing the country’s enormous death toll. “Locking down the American public was wrong. It was wrong to close businesses.” The crowd roared their approval.
At 70, Kennedy, who lifts weights at Golds Gym in Venice Beach, Calif., is a model of both extreme health and frailty. He’s tanned and muscular like a surfer, with sparkling white teeth. Still, a neurological disorder has reduced his voice to a grandfatherly croak, hardly ideal for the campaign process.
Long before his skepticism about the Covid vaccine gained national attention, he was admired by many New Yorkers for his support of environmental causes, including the restoration of the Hudson River.
Some who traveled to Long Island on Sunday to hear Kennedy speak expressed enthusiasm for alternative – often unapproved – medical treatments. Some shared conspiracy theories, including a man who called for abolishing the Federal Reserve and another who linked last year’s devastating Hawaii fire to the Sept. 11 attacks.
One feeling that seemed to be widespread was anger over the plight of the American middle class and the oft-repeated fear among participants that their own children might never be able to buy a home like they had .
“I don’t want to hear the nonsense that the economy has never been better. Anyone who fills their gas tank or buys groceries knows that four years ago we were doing much better,” said Sonia Sifneos, a personal trainer from Astoria, Queens, who at 59 — and like Kennedy — had strong biceps.
Sifneos voted for Biden in 2020 but complained that the president had been “hijacked” by the left-wing fringe of the Democratic Party. “He turned his back on the middle class,” she said. While she fled the Democratic Party, her brother and sister-in-law were former Trump voters who, she said, were now “like us – die-hard Kennedy supporters.”
Greg Fischer, a Long Islander who is himself a staunch independent seeker for public office, smiled forlornly as he expressed the feeling that ordinary people are doomed in a world dominated by powerful interests.
“Look, we’re nobody. Nobody,” he said, looking around the room. “We get ground up in the machine every day.”
He rejected the suggestion that a vote for Kennedy would be a waste: “You always hear that when you’re an independent candidate. That’s the standard line for blocking and defending.”
After his speech, Kennedy stayed behind to tend an assembly line of hundreds of selfie-seekers. The Grateful Dead’s 1970 anthem “Truckin'” played over a sound system: “What a long, strange journey this has been. . . ” Then he stood in front of the media and took questions – sometimes answering them with a simple “yes” or “no” and sometimes pausing before giving a detailed answer that deviated from a predictable script.
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When asked about Ukraine, for example, Kennedy said he would end the war “very quickly” by talking to Vladimir Putin. “I make a living,” he said, brushing aside concerns about dealing with the Russian leader. He also pointed to his uncle’s dealings with Nikita Khrushchev six decades ago when expressing sympathy for Russia’s security needs.
“I don’t think the relentless expansion of NATO has been a good thing for anyone,” Kennedy said, urging neoconservatives in Washington to accept the reality of a multipolar world.
But when it came to Israel and Gaza, a man who proudly described himself as an “opponent of war” took a different tone. He said Israel had “not only the right but also the duty to protect its citizens” and warned that Hamas would only use a ceasefire to rearm and prepare for another attack.
He criticized corrupt Palestinian politicians for wasting billions of dollars in aid money. Asked what he would do to help the Palestinians, he replied: “I would support the abolition of Hamas.”