It is common for a politician to invoke his family during an election campaign. But it happens differently 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 president — he’s talking about the late Robert F. Kennedy, the tragic hope of a younger generation during of the 1968 elections. When he mentions “my uncle” when discussing the need for negotiations with Russia, he would be the 35th American president to have avoided disaster during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Kennedy invoked these ghosts several times during a campaign stop Sunday in Holbrook, a town smack dab in the middle of suburban Long Island. The venue was a large wedding hall, and he filled it with a mostly white, middle-aged crowd. They welcomed an independent campaign that exudes a libertarian vibe and is draped in suspicion of business and big pharma, but also infused with nostalgia.
“There are people who are interested in him because it’s a bit like going to see Paul McCartney,” said Stephen Vella, 62, a retired police officer who now spends his days painting and writing about poetry.
Kennedy has registered to vote in two states and claims enough signatures for seven more — even though most of his extended family has publicly supported President Joe Biden. One of them, Jack Schlossberg, President Kennedy’s grandson, accused him last year of “doing business with Camelot” and dismissed his candidacy as “embarrassing.” Their rejection has deepened the sense that the recovered heroin addict and avowed vaccine skeptic is loony and self-promoting.
Yet a likable candidate with a famous name and campaigning flair appears to be stirring angst in the Biden and Donald Trump camps as an alternative who could catch fire and tip the scales in a tight race. Kennedy polls about 10 percent nationally, according to an average of FiveThirtyEight polls.
One sign of his relevance is that Trump, after denouncing Kennedy from the start, has taken to calling him a “radical left-wing liberal” and a Democratic “plant” sent to ruin his chances. His displeasure may have been sparked by a recent poll showing the independent candidate could get more votes from him than from Biden.
During his appearance in Holbrook, Kennedy attempted to tackle head-on the doubt that plagues all independent candidates in American politics: voting for them is a wasted vote.
“The reason I’m late.” . . “It’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 a few hot-button issues such as guns and abortion, Democrats and Republicans were largely similar, Kennedy argued. He raised a host of issues plaguing America — chronic poor health, the national debt, a “poisoned” food supply — that he said his opponents weren’t even addressing.
He pleaded for a more civil tone. If Trump or Biden prevail, he said, “half the country will be angry and the other half will be smug.” Someone in the crowd responded by shouting, “Make America good again!” “. Someone else kept shouting, “Ivermectin!” ” – a reference to horse dewormer that some have used as an unapproved Covid therapy.
Meanwhile, Kennedy demonstrated some political skill in trying to soften his reputation as an “anti-vaccine.” “Whatever we did — whatever we did — was wrong,” he said of the U.S. response to the pandemic, citing the country’s enormous death toll. “Locking up the American public was a mistake. It was a mistake to close businesses. » The crowd roared in approval.
At 70, Kennedy, who lifts weights at Golds Gym in Venice Beach, Calif., is the picture of both extreme health and a certain fragility. He’s tanned and muscular, like a surfer, with bright white teeth. Yet his voice has been reduced by a neurological disease to a grandfatherly rasp that is hardly ideal for the campaign trial.
Long before his Covid vaccine skepticism gained national attention, he was admired by many New Yorkers for championing environmental causes, including cleaning up the Hudson River.
Some who traveled to Long Island on Sunday to hear Kennedy expressed enthusiasm for alternative — often unapproved — medical treatments. Some shared conspiracy theories, including one man calling for the abolition of the Federal Reserve and another linking last year’s devastating Hawaii fire to the 9/11 attacks.
One sentiment that seemed widespread was anger at the plight of the American middle class and the oft-repeated fear among attendees that their own children would never be able to buy a home, as they did.
“I don’t want to hear bullshit that the economy has never been better. Anyone who gasses up or goes shopping knows that we were much better off four years ago,” said Sonia Sifneos, a personal trainer from Astoria, Queens, who at 59 — and like Kennedy — owned Chiseled biceps.
Sifneos voted for Biden in 2020 but complained that the president had been “hijacked” by the left fringe of the Democratic Party. “He turned his back on the middle class,” she said. While she was fleeing 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 an independent and inveterate seeker of public office, smiled in despair as he expressed the feeling that ordinary people were doomed in a world dominated by powerful interests.
“Look, we’re nobody. Nobody,” he said, glancing around the room. “We get ground in the machine every day.”
He rejected the idea that voting for Kennedy was a waste: “You always hear that when you’re an independent candidate. This is the standard line for deflecting and defending.
After his speech, Kennedy stayed behind to maintain an assembly line of hundreds of selfie seekers. The Grateful Dead’s 1970 anthem, “Truckin’,” played from a sound system: “What a long and strange journey this has been. . . » Then he appeared in front of the media and answered questions – sometimes sending them off with a simple “yes” or “no” and sometimes pausing before providing a detailed answer that deviated from a script predictable.
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Asked about Ukraine, for example, Kennedy said he would end the war “very quickly” by talking with Vladimir Putin. “I negotiate for a living,” he said, dismissing concerns about his ability to handle the Russian leader. He also recalled his uncle’s relationship with Nikita Khrushchev sixty years ago, while expressing sympathy for Russia’s security needs.
“I don’t think NATO’s relentless expansion has been a good thing for anyone,” Kennedy said, urging neoconservatives in Washington to accept the reality of a multipolar world.
Yet when it came to Israel and Gaza, a man who proudly declared himself “anti-war” struck a different tone. Israel, he said, “has 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 castigated corrupt Palestinian political leaders for squandering billions of dollars in aid. When then asked what he would do to help the Palestinians, he replied: “I would support the elimination of Hamas.” »
