Dem
51
GOP
49
It is not a secret that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. talked to Donald Trump a couple of weeks ago about possibly trading an endorsement and withdrawal from the race in exchange for an appointment in a potential second Trump administration. After the news went public (and after Trump, very likely, told Junior to pound sand), Kennedy excoriated the former president on social media.
In the last 48 hours, the same thing has played out, except on the other side of the aisle. On Wednesday, The Washington Post reported that Kennedy reached out to the Harris campaign, trying to broker the same sort of deal. He made even less progress than with Trump; Team Harris refused to even discuss a meeting. So, yesterday, Kennedy threw another temper tantrum, using eX-Twitter to declare that his famous forbears would be disgusted with Harris & Co., and that "My dad and uncle's party was the champion of voting rights and fair elections. VP Harris's is the party of lawfare, disenfranchisement, and the coronation of its candidates by corporate donors and party elites."
It's not too hard to understand Kennedy's thinking here. He's in freefall in the polls, having seen his support drop by half in the last month. He is most certainly not going to be invited to participate in any debates, and he's at serious risk of being kicked off the ballot in some/many of the states where he's qualified, by virtue of having used a non-legitimate home address. This is his best, and presumably last, chance to try to squeeze some tangible benefit out of his quixotic campaign.
It is also not too hard to understand the Harris campaign's thinking. Sure, they could certainly find some fourth-level job to give to Junior. Probably not Vice Undersecretary of Interior for Dogcatching, since he might eat the dogs, but something like that. However, he surely wants something related to infectious disease, which is a total non-starter for any Democratic candidate. Further, the upside in bringing Kennedy aboard the SS Harris is questionable, at best. He presumably thinks that he can deliver 1-3% of the electorate, which would swing the election. But he is probably wrong about that; the Kennedy supporters who are left-leaning appear to have already largely decamped for the Harris ticket—this is why his support has been halved. Meanwhile, there are some Democrats who would be furious to learn that Harris '24 was playing footsies with Kennedy '24, and that might drive some of those voters into the arms of Jill Stein or Cornel West.
In short, both major-party tickets have clearly decided Kennedy is more trouble than he's worth. We don't know where he goes from here, particularly if his running mate Nicole Shanahan, along with the tech bros who were supporting him in hopes of helping Trump, decide to close their wallets. (Z)