“I am delighted to announce Dennis Kucinich as the manager of my Presidential campaign. A former 8-term member of Congress, he has been both an icon of progressive politics and an iconoclastic, game-changing force within progressive politics,” RFK Jr. announced recently on Twitter.
I remember Kucinich from back in the day, when I had first developed a political consciousness, when he ran against Obama and Hillary in the ’08 primaries.
He’s another rare anti-war, anti-corruption specimen with integrity on the left, like RFK Jr., willing to go rogue. I think of him as sort of the Ron Paul of the left.
“Dennis Kucinich understands the political system from the inside out. His experience, and also his encyclopedic knowledge of issues, and his uncompromising personal integrity, have already made him invaluable to my campaign,” Kennedy added in a sub-Tweet.
There has been much speculation about what kind of operatives RFK Jr. would bring to his campaign. In my view, Kucinich is a great start.
RFK Jr. has yet to announce who his VP running mate will be.
Certain commentators have lamented RFK Jr. running as a Democrat, arguing his prospects would be better served by running as an independent, since his politics are so far outside of the Democrat Party mainstream (although they wouldn’t have been a few decades ago when his father and uncle were active, before the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer took it over as proxies of corporate and Deep State interests).
It’s true that RFK Jr. is going to have a hell of a time trying to peel off the more cringey segment of the Democrat Party coalition – the kind of people who put Anthony Fauci signs in their yards and melt down at Starbucks when the barista isn’t masked.
As far as I can tell, there are at least two good reasons for RFK Jr. to stay inside of the party apparatus for his run: first, his challenge may prove to severely weaken Biden’s campaign (assuming he can get his message out there, ideally through a one-on-one debate that the DNC is fighting hard to prevent). Secondly, the reality of the electoral map, unfortunately, makes winning on a third-party ticket logistically impossible. Ask Ralph Nader or Ross Perot.
The mask-obsessed Social Justice™ MSNBC heads are never going to go for RFK Jr., so he would be well-advised to just let them go instead of pandering to them. They are a minority within the population at large and even, perhaps, within the Democrat Party itself.
Exhibit A is former MSNBC host Krystal Ball on her show “Breaking Points,” attacking RFK Jr. over his stance on vaccines but explicitly stating that she’s “not interested in a debate” on the actual merits of his argument. She smears, then covers her ears so she can’t hear his reply.
Paying off your “Access Journalism” Bills with Krystal Ball @krystalball
Being Anti-Vaxx is worse that Funding Nazis to Marianne Williamson supporters, according to Krystal
It’s so obvious that Krystal Ball and Breaking Points brought RFK JR @RobertKennedyJr on to point out… pic.twitter.com/9iP9xt7VxP
— Compton Jay (@ComptonMadeMe) May 17, 2023
That sh**show is basically how any appeal to the Branch COVIDians is bound to go.
As one commenter noted, you can take the girl out of the MSNBC, but you can’t take the MSNBC out of the girl.
If I were advising RFK Jr., I would suggest that he select an outsider, independent figure for his VP instead of a Democrat Party loyalist to maximize his independent appeal. If enough of them register as Democrats to vote in the upcoming primaries, he could overcome the institutional disadvantage that he currently has within the party.
Might I suggest, for instance, Tulsi Gabbard?