Does RFK2 really peel more from Dems?
EXTRA: Church of Trump and CT's $195k no-show job
More read meat here, folks. According to a Gallup survey from last year, support among voters for a viable third party in the United States was at an all-time high at 63% and has been steadily increasing for at least 10 years.
Unaffiliated voters such as yours truly (we have been described as the “third rail”) have typically been the most supportive of a third way, but increasing numbers of Democrats and Republicans are jumping on board as well. At 58-46% respectively, more Republicans support the idea than Democrats, perhaps because Dems almost always believe third parties invariably help Republicans get elected.
Be that as it may, with support for a third party at all-time highs during a national-ticket election year, why is the field of independent presidential candidates so thin and lackluster? Here’s a free and handy NYT guide to who is still in and who got out.
With Trump and Biden effectively locking up their respective parties’ nominations, we are left with eccentric academic Cornel West, activist, physician and professional candidate-for-office Jill Stein and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (hereinafter referred to as “RFK2”).
In my home state of Connecticut, Marianne Williamson and Dean Phillips remain on the ballot for today’s meaningless Democratic primary, along with Cenk Uygur, a Turkish-born media figure whose 2024 campaign has been suspended and who, like Stein, is a near-perennial office-seeker. It appears that the No Labels organization has failed to field a candidate, so we are essentially left with RFK2.
Nationally, RFK2 is polling consistently in the range of 10%, as analyst Lee Drutman noted in this terrific RFK2 review at CNN.com, while Biden and Trump are stuck with approval ratings near 40%. Remarkably, RFK2 is the only candidate with a net favorable rating. This is bound to change (more on that below).
How could this be? The man is a well known peddler of vaccine disinformation and COVID conspiracy theories who has even been shunned by his own storied family. The Boston Globe reports (paywall) that RFK2 is trying mightily to downplay his activism, “insisting that he is not antivaccine, just pro-vaccine safety.” Right …
Speaking of which, I’m guessing some of his favorables can be explained away by the unwarranted but durable mystique around his family name. I’ve never been a devotee of the Kennedy family mythology, so the attraction is utterly lost on me.
RFK2 is the highest polling independent presidential candidate since the 1992 candidacy of wealthy businessman Ross Perot, who had far more money and resources than RFK2 but nonetheless failed to win a single state and was able to place second in only two: Maine and Utah.
The mystery over whom RFK2 would pick as his running mate was solved after he recently selected Nicole Shanahan, an attorney, philanthropist, ex-wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin and the funder of RFK2’s bizarre Super Bowl commercial (see below). This selection could also have implications for what kinds of voters will support this independent ticket.
As is the case with most independent presidential campaigns, the central question is from which of the two major parties will the indie peel away the most votes? Conventional wisdom is that the Democrats would have the most to fear from a candidate named Kennedy — or any option that gives anti-Trumpers a non-Biden alternative. But I’m not so sure.
As the Bulwark’s Jonathan V. Last points out, polling consistently has Trump with a lead with RFK2 on the ballot. He will almost certainly fail to receive 10% (or the 15% he currently pulls in the RCP averages) in the general election:
People have no idea who he is, what he stands for, or why he’s running. But I promise you: If Kennedy is on the ballot, then everyone is going to find out exactly who he is and what he stands for … In the public’s mind, RFK will be a single-issue candidate and that issue is his opposition to vaccines
Here’s a superb comical takedown of the RFK2/Shanahan ticket and their supporters from the team at the Daily Show (sans Jon Stewart):
It’s also worth noting, as Last did, that RFK2’s vaccine aversion (or um, “pro-vaccine safety”) stance will appeal to Republican-leaning voters because research shows that since 2016 the percentage of GOPers who oppose vaccine mandates in public schools has more than doubled. When his opponents start to define RFK2, or so the thinking goes, his appeal will diminish, with his only growth opportunity being Republican types who are vaccine skeptics.
As the truth emerges about RFK2, Last concludes: “His remaining support will be disproportionately drawn from low-propensity, vaccine-skeptical MAGA Republicans.”
So there we have it. A solid case that RFK2’s candidacy will wind up helping Democrats. Maybe Biden supporters can slow the bed wetting.
But it’s not a cult …
When Barack Obama was running for president (and even during his two terms in office), it sometimes felt like there was cultish aspect to his leadership. I’d seen rallies where he was treated like a rock star, with fans lighting matches and chanting, “Yes, we can … hope and change.”
But Obama could only dream of the hero worship and idolatry Donald Trump receives. The devotion of his followers knows no bounds. At his bizarre rallies, they not only chant, but they wear clothing comparing Trump to god, hold their fingers in the air and echo QAnon conspiracies amid cinematic music and Messianic imagery designed to deify their man. The crowd lays it on especially thick near the end of Trump’s rallies when his tone shifts to that of a “theatrical sermon.”
“The net effect here is that Trump has turned the Republican Party into something resembling the Church of Trump,” writes Michael Bender of the New York Times.
Benders piece, published yesterday, is no April Fool’s joke. There is plenty of video so that you don’t have to take his word for what it’s like to be at a Trump rally. I would urge everyone to read it. Below is a free link that will get you around the paywall for 30 days in case you’re not a subscriber:
The Church of Trump: How He’s Infusing Christianity Into His Movement
The $195k no-show job
Okay, here’s another good reason why so many people hate the government. Kevin Rennie, a former Connecticut state Senator who blogs and writes a weekly column on politics for the Hartford Courant, reports:
The newly-hired $195,000 a year Interim Assistant Vice Chancellor of Human Resources and Labor Relations at the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities, Lori Lamb, lives in Arizona.
That alone would not be news. After all, college administrators tend to move around a lot and they are well paid. The news is that the state will not be paying her relocation expenses because … Lamb will not be required to move to Connecticut.
Nice work if you can get it.
Kevin Rennie: CT pays a temp college official $195K a year. She lives in Arizona
(free Wayback Machine version)
I had to ban an anonymous commenter, not because s/he challenged me on the vaccine issue but because of persistent name calling and the posting of a link to a discredited journalist's website as evidence that RFK2 should not be called out on his views -- past and current -- on vaccines. Life is too short to put up with people like that.
Terry, that was an especially fun one. although "fun," I guess, has a different meaning than it used to! Thanks for your work.