Biden and Trump fear Kennedy scion RFK jr.: ‘I’m not a spoilsport’

• Rudy Bouma

  US Correspondent

Many hundreds of fans line up on Long Island, New York, to take a selfie with him. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. patiently takes pictures with them all.

“Which candidate does that?”, Michelle wonders out loud. The woman from Queens hopes that RFK Jr. will continue the politics of his uncle, former President John. F. Kennedy, and his father Robert F. Kennedy Sr.

Kennedy junior will compete as an independent candidate against Joe Biden and Donald Trump in the American presidential elections. Although he has no chance of winning the presidency, he may determine who does win: Biden or Trump. In a neck-and-neck race, he can spoil the game for one of them by stealing crucial votes.

The self-confident Kennedy smells opportunities now that the two defeated presidential candidates are historically unpopular: “If there is a moment when a third candidate has a good chance, it is now,” he responds during his rally to the NOS.

The 70-year-old Kennedy had an eventful life. After the traumatic murders of his uncle and father, he became addicted to heroin. After 14 years he kicked the habit, worked at the Public Prosecution Service and made a name for himself as an environmental activist.

He also heads the Children’s Health Defense organization, which is known for disinformation about vaccines. RFK Jr. regularly repeats the myth that vaccines cause autism.

During the corona pandemic, Kennedy became a prominent exponent of conspiracy theories. According to him, Covid-19 was developed in a lab as a bioweapon and mainly affects certain ethnic groups. RFK Jr. was temporarily banned from Instagram.

Kennedy regularly has to backtrack from incorrect statements. For example, he wrongly said that the stormers of the Capitol were unarmed.

RFK also went through the dust after the break of the much-watched Super Bowl a campaign spot was aired for him that was based on a famous spot by his uncle JFK. His family was furious: they think so Bobby runs off with his uncle’s estate.

The wealthy financier of the very expensive advertisement, Nicole Shanahan, is now Kennedy’s running mate. RFK Jr. relies mainly on a wealthy donor who also finances Trump’s campaign.

RFK Jr. averages 13 percent of the vote in the polls and is already on the ballot in California, Utah, Hawaii and the important swing states Michigan. And he himself says that if the presidential election were a contest between him and Trump or Biden, he would win. He bases this on a poll among 26,000 voters that his campaign conducted.

Many family members recently expressed their support for Joe Biden at a party meeting. One of them calls Bobby “a threat to the US” because he could hinder Biden’s re-election.

It will not be the first time that a third party candidate determines the outcome of an American election. For example, Greens candidate Ralph Nader stole much-needed votes from Democrat Al Gore in 2000. swing states Florida. Republican George W. Bush walked away with the bone.

Eight years earlier, Bush’s father himself drew the short straw: independent billionaire Ross Perot won 19 percent of the – mostly conservative – votes with his radical austerity agenda, putting rival Bill Clinton in the White House.

The question now, however, is who RFK Jr. will steal the most votes from: progressive voters, who fall for his well-known family name and environmental activism, or conservative voters who are charmed by his anti-establishment attitude and vaccine skepticism. In polls, RFK takes away approximately the same number of votes from both.

For Biden and Trump, there is now reason to fear RFK Jr. Biden’s campaign team has been attacking Kennedy for some time. Trump initially had kind words for Kennedy, but has now started to criticize him. For example, the Republican presidential candidate wrote last week on his social media platform Truth Social that a vote for what he considers the “radical left” RFK Jr. is a “wasted protest vote.”

Kennedy refuses himself as spoiler to characterize. “A spoilsport is someone who cannot win but disrupts the struggle between others. But I can win and President Biden cannot, so he is the spoilsport.”

His fans in Long Island don’t want to hear about it either. Like 18-year-old Luciano, who is voting for the first time. “Don’t vote for the one who can win,” he says in the long line for selfies with RFK, “vote for the one who stands for the same ideals.”