Keller @ Large: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. presidential run 'doomed to fail'
BOSTON - Late in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s two-hour-long speech announcing his run for the Democratic presidential nomination, an alarm went off in the Park Plaza Hotel along with an evacuation announcement. "Nice try," said Kennedy, as he continued with his monologue.
That moment says plenty about Kennedy's campaign, an effort doomed to fail - unless winning, or even seriously competing, is beside the point.
Expense was not spared at today's event, but truth was in short supply.
A Herculean effort was made to brand the candidate as a "Kennedy Democrat," but perennial fringe candidate Lyndon LaRouche would be a better name-check. Kennedy's late uncles - President John F. Kennedy and Senator Ted Kennedy - were strong supporters of mass vaccination, not vaccine misinformation superspreaders like Bobby Jr., whose own family members have repeatedly denounced him for promoting lies about the measles and COVID-19 vaccines.
Teddy and JFK were also not radical isolationists on foreign policy like Bobby is, claiming today that it's the US, not the Russians, who want to prolong the war in Ukraine.
But Bobby Jr. does have a famous name and some money behind him. Could he get any traction in a race against President Biden?
Vaccine skepticism is not widespread among Democrats or most independents, so it's hard to see him being more than a very minor factor in any Democratic primary. But actually making a race of it might not be the goal here.
Kennedy would not be the first presidential candidate to be in it for self-promotion or to peddle a cause, and if media outlets drawn by the name and starved for an angle decide to cover him, mission accomplished.
But there's also another aspect to this candidacy: Robert Costa of CBS News has reported that former Trump crony Steve Bannon has been urging Kennedy to run, and the candidate has been photographed in the company of notorious Republican dirty trickster Roger Stone, a founder of the Trump phenomenon. As Costa puts it: "RFK Jr. ould be both a useful chaos agent in 2024 race and a big name who could help stoke anti-vax sentiment around the country," which might be helpful to the Republicans.
Look for this candidacy to vanish without much of a trace - except for more damage done to the once-vaunted Kennedy political brand.