The Kennedy Reboot

 

 It was big news. Sort of.  President Grandpa has another opponent for the Democratic Party's Presidential nomination besides that space cadet lady.

The candidate has a pretty big name, especially in Democratic Party circles:  Kennedy.

That's right, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr has thrown his hat into the ring, and even though he has never held a political office, he has a respectable 14% of Democratic party voters saying he's their man.  Although, honestly, it is probably 14% of people that recognize his name.

In today's cynical climate, you would not believe the adoration the Kennedy name evoked.  In the 60s and 70s, they were the Royal Family of The USA.

John Kennedy became President after Dwight Eisenhower. Although Eisenhower saved Western Civilization, he was old and bald.  Kennedy was young with hair.

This was a big deal in the early '60s. Kennedy didn't wear a hat because he had hair a hat would mess up. The hat industry hasn't been the same since. That's Presidential power.

Oh sure, there were tensions with Russia. We later learned he liked to fool around on Jackie. He didn't write the book he won the Pulitzer Prize for. But all in all, everybody liked good old JFK.

Then came Dallas.

His assassination by Lee Harvey Oswald/The CIA/Lyndon Johnson/The FBI/Ted Cruz's Dad/500 others capitulated Kennedy into America Superstar unseen since Lincoln was assassinated

People wrote songs about him.

"Anybody here....seen my old friend John?
  Can you tell me where he's gone?
  He freed a lot of people
  but it seems the good they die young."

John Kennedy had a brother, Robert F. Kennedy, Sr, ("Bobby") who was Kennedy's most trusted advisor and Attorney General.

Lyndon Johnson became President upon the death of President Kennedy. This was a problem because Johnson was, historically speaking, a very homely man.  He had big ears and a big nose. He didn't have a lot of hair. What hair he had, he slicked back with a Vitalis sixty-second workout   Robert Kennedy hated him.

There was a war going on back then. It was called The Vietnam War. You may have heard about it. It was in all the papers.

Johnson decided not to run for re-election in 1968 so Bobby Kennedy jumped in the race.  It looked like he was going to win the Democratic party's nomination for President. But, and stop me if you heard it, Bobby was shot and killed, too.

Next in line for the Kennedys was the youngest brother, Edward ("Teddy") Kennedy.  However, Teddy drove a car off a bridge into a tidal pond. Teddy got out of the car and swam to safety. Unfortunately, a young woman named Mary Jo Kopechne was trapped in the car and drowned. Teddy didn't inform the police until about 8 hours later because he forgot.

That happened in 1969 and Teddy did not run for President until 1980, when he ran against President Jimmy Carter.  

The Kennedy Magic was pretty much spent by then and Teddy could not beat President Jimmy even though you had high inflation, unemployment, and 44 hostages in Iran.

Here we are, forty years later, and Robert Kennedy, Jr. has decided to run against President Pea-paw for the Democratic nomination.

Kennedy is for, per his website, "Honest Government".*  

He says, "A democratic government is supposed to be of, by, and for the people. But government institutions have betrayed our trust. The intelligence agencies spy on our own people. Government and tech platforms conspire to surveil and censor the public. Regulatory agencies have been captured by those they are supposed to regulate: Wall Street controls the SEC. Polluters and extractive industries dominate the EPA and BLM. Pharma controls the CDC, NIH, and FDA. Big Ag controls the USDA. Big Tech has captured the FTC. No wonder trust in government is at all-time lows. It’s time to earn it back."

He wants to "Heal The Divide." His website states, "Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has clear positions on most of today’s divisive trigger issues like abortion, guns, and immigration, but he knows that both sides have legitimate concerns and legitimate moral positions."    

Sounds good, right?

Also, and this is totally irrelevant, Kennedy is married to Cheryl Hines who plays Larry David's ex-wife in "Curb Your Enthusiasm".  In the eyes of this political commentator, she's pretty cute.

Well, he's got a couple of problems.

One, while he is younger than Biden, he's no spring chicken. He's sixty-nine years old.  The younger Gen Z-ish Democrats won't trade-in one Boomer for another.

Two, he anti-vax.

During the bad old days of Covid, we had daily arguments about the Covid vaccine. It was produced rather rapidly, and when it was introduced, Trump was still President, so you had Democrats saying they were scared of taking a "jab".   

Then Biden became President, and you had Democrats loudly proclaiming they were for the vaccine, science, and supported the President's effort to make taking the vaccine a condition of your employment, even if you didn't work in health care and it made you grow another ear.

But Kennedy has been consistent. He doesn't like any vaccines, including the ones babies get, because he says it causes autism. 

Still, this gives him a cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs image and this doesn't fit within the current framework of the Democratic Party primary voters half of which confuse Bobby Kennedy with Bobby Brady.

While there are a lot of people who would like a Camelot reboot, this seems like a reboot Hollywood trots which has Pete Davidson playing Indiana Jones.  It seems like a good idea at the time, but that time has gone.

 

 

*Just once I would love to see a politician claim to be in favor of "Dishonest Government".  "More Money For Me" could be his campaign slogan.